Live from The Drum’s B2B World Fest 2025, our panel of experts discussed how communities have come full circle since the forum days.
At The Drum’s B2B World Fest 2025, deputy editor Jen Faull led a lively discussion exploring how B2B brands can connect with buyers by building, nurturing and activating communities of advocates.
Joining her were Mel Lazarus, ecosystem engagement director at Open Banking; Alicia Skubick, chief marketing officer at Trustpilot; and Chris Adams, founder and chief executive officer of Hey Honey. Together, they unpack how community has become a cornerstone of modern B2B marketing.
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Lazarus opened by addressing a growing truth within the industry: “I think there’s been a degrading of trust in traditional advertising and marketing. People are looking to make those human connections.”
For her, communities represent an answer to an age of automation and AI fatigue, a way to bring authenticity back into marketing. “Brands that are thinking ahead are understanding that and creating those, helping people to create those communities,” she said.
Skubick agreed, noting a broader societal shift toward peer-led decision-making. “We’re seeing a pivot to more distributed decision making, which is the form of forums, communities, review platforms,” she explained. “In the age of LLMs, especially in AI, the way those systems are making decisions is taking that structured, authentic human content and helping to pull that information through.”
From the creative agency side, Adams urged marketers to remember the human at the heart of every B2B purchase. “You’re still targeting a human at the end of the day,” he said. “The buyer is a millennial, will soon be Gen Z. So community and their trust in community is part of their natural language.” He challenged brands to stop thinking in strict B2B or B2C terms: “Community is the language of our audience, who they trust is moving a lot away from brand.”
Lazarus shared how Open Banking is putting these principles into practice, turning community into a strategic pillar. “This is not the traditional marketing that I’ve grown up doing,” she admitted. “It’s about driving conversation and dialogue in absolutely everything we do.” Her team’s focus on authenticity, engagement, and empowering internal ambassadors has already led to increased interaction and trust.
Skubick emphasized that fear shouldn’t stop brands from engaging openly. “A bad review, start up a better business,” she said. “People are talking to each other, make sure it’s really meaningful and credible and authentic.”
Adams summed up the mindset shift perfectly: “Community is the new persona.” Rather than relying on abstract individual archetypes, he argued, marketers should think of shared interests and networks as their true audience.
As Lazarus put it in closing, the key is clarity of purpose: “Understand your why, what are the conversations you’re going to be facilitating that your community members can’t get elsewhere.”