Top Agencies: Doremus

Comments: Increased revenue by 11%; added new clients, including BNY Mellon, Caterpillar, Dolby, Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange, Logitech, QBE Insurance, Schroders, Swift, Visa; b2b comprises 95% of total agency revenue.

Doremus, New York, saw its third straight year of double-digit revenue growth in 2011 despite the challenging economic climate.

The agency picked up several new b2b accounts, including asset management company BNY Mellon, Caterpillar Inc., Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange and Logitech. It also expanded work for existing clients such as Corning Inc., HP and Owens-Illinois Inc.

“We are trying to create real movements for our clients, to help drive demand for products and services, as well as real advocacy-based outcomes,” said Carl Anderson, CEO of Doremus.

To do this, the agency is using an array of tools—from print to online video to social media—to tell stories that create awareness and brand advocacy.

One of its most successful campaign stories last year was the online video “A Day Made of Glass,” created for specialty glass manufacturer Corning to show the role of glass in developing products for the future.

To reach audiences such as technology companies, manufacturers, investors and business influencers, Doremus developed an online video that shows a world in which glass plays a major role in products such as multimedia countertops and automobile navigation systems.

The video became a viral hit on YouTube, with more than 17 million views by the end of the year. Interest was so strong that Corning created a live symposium with customers and prospects to discuss futuristic applications using glass.

“[The video] really created a movement around the Corning glass offering,” Anderson said. “They are getting incoming calls from a host of different companies and industries that normally wouldn't think of glass as an ingredient, such as retail, entertainment and hospitals.”

For Owens-Illinois, another manufacturer of glass (for packaging rather than as a product ingredient) Doremus created an integrated campaign called “Glass Is Life.”

The goal of the campaign was to promote the benefits of glass as a packaging material compared with cans, cartons and plastics. Those benefits featured included protecting food, not leaching into the environment and the beauty of the material.

The integrated campaign included print ads, online videos, social media and a microsite. It featured people telling stories about glass, from environmentalist Celine Cousteau (Jacques Cousteau's granddaughter) to award-winning Norwegian chef Geir Skeie. The ads were designed to have an emotional impact on different audiences, from brand managers to business leaders, and the campaign succeeded in generating hundreds of leads for O-I.

For new client Logitech, which makes computer peripheral products such as mice and keyboards, Doremus was asked to develop a campaign that would differentiate the brand in the hotly competitive office technology space.

The agency kicked off a campaign in the fourth quarter called “Welcome to the New Office.” The effort included online videos, a new b2b area on the corporate website, collateral and channel marketing.

“We are trying to create a movement around the products by showing how Logitech enables people to work everywhere in a functional way,” Anderson said.

Also last year, Doremus introduced a proprietary social media tool called Doremus Network Analysis (DNA), which gathers intelligence about clients' brands and products in social media channels to help inform the development of business platforms and campaigns. —K.M.

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