B2B Media Opps: Orion Labs taps CMO, starts using digital display (Score 78)

Orion Labs, which empowers desk-less workers and teams, selected Michael Schwartz as its new CMO in mid-2020, part of an effort to grow rapidly. Schwartz previously served as CMO for B2B enterprise software company ION Commodities and Allegro Development, which ION acquired, for a total of two years. He brought expertise in strengthening B2B marketing programs from the ground up, which will aid him greatly as he spearheads marketing initiatives for Orion. In his new role, Schwartz will develop a world-class marketing program and guide the company's strategy as it grows to served the expanding market. He seems to be Orion's first CMO.

The company also hired marketing director Rob Cox last summer; Cox formerly served in the same role at ION. Similarly, Orion appointed B2B marketing manager Jacqueline Wasem last summer; she was previously ION's senior marketing and communications manager. Since all three of these new DMs came from ION, Orion may continue adding marketing personnel from the latter company.

Additionally, less than a year has passed since Orion landed a $29m Series B funding round in March 2020; this brought the company's total valuation to $63m, per Crunchbase.

According to Adbeat, Orion first began utilizing digital display in mid-September 2020; since then, it has allocated around $1.2k toward this channel. Most of the past year's spend went toward programmatic ads placed via Google Display Networks ($756) or Infolinks ($246) or native ads placed via Yahoo Gemini Native ($199). The company's top targeted site destinations include washingtonexaminer.com, msn.com, radioreference.com, wunderground.com and guardian.ng.

Of course, Orion's foray into digital display could easily be a result of its 2020 marketing personnel hires. It could also have come from the company's recent funding round. Whatever the cause, I assume its investments in this channel will continue since they have not yet slowed down. Orion offers a multi-modal collaboration platform that offers desk-less workers to increase their productivity, safety and compliance and customer engagement. Its target demographic consists primarily of businesses in need of such services. Orion's services are in higher demand than ever right now considering how many companies have had their employees working remotely due to the global pandemic.

Agency & martech readers - As Orion's first CMO, it's likely Schwartz will seek agency partners for the emerging brand. The company may seek PR services to boost brand awareness before looking for creative and/or media agency partners; either way, it wouldn't hurt to reach out.