The goal of the report is to help marketers “looking to produce imaginative, growth-oriented, and efficient marketing” assess the most significant service providers in the market. We are ranked among 12 other providers based on 17 criteria, including current offering, strategy and market presence. We believe these rankings paint a portrait of growing concerns in the transformation of digital and a new frontier for growth, and insight into how well-equipped partners are to help brands adapt.

Demand for growth fuels new priorities in marketing.

Forrester’s evaluation of marketing creative and content services in a single Forrester Wave™ is new this year, and reflects brands’ need for a partner who can combine a portfolio of services to build impact across the full customer journey. In the report, author Forrester Principal Analyst Jay Pattisall notes, “…As C-suite demands for growth and cost effectiveness increase, some enterprise buyers are seeking integrated and orchestrated solutions to unlock value across marketing campaigns, customer experience, and commerce.”

In particular, the report recognizes the “providers that matter most and how they stack up,” and we’ve noticed that those with strong abilities to integrate strategy and creativity to resonate with audiences scored highest. Our view is that those who can iteratively build, test and tweak content—and drive impact with highly efficient media spend—in this way are best able to fuel brands’ desire to achieve greater ROI, especially as hyper adoption of new channels and behavior accelerates.

Insight into evolving consumer behavior is key to transformational success.

The digital transformation marketplace is estimated to be worth $600 billion, growing at a compounded rate of 20% over the next 10 years. 80% of that growth comes from lifestyle mobility, social innovation and other virtualization adoption. Add in the cultural revolution enabling a complete reinvention of the internet, estimated to add over $1.5 trillion to the global economy by 2030, and the largest growth opportunity for brands in the history of digital is up for grabs: virtualization.

Contrary to the pipes, plumbing and integration that defined the digital transformation era, virtualization is defined by a set of new audience behaviors, cultural norms and technology paradigms resulting from 30 years of digital transformation, hyper-accelerated over the past five years. We believe this focus on behavior will define the winners of the new era.

In the Forrester Wave™, Pattisall affirms the importance of consumer insights for CMOs today. “Converting consumer insights into compelling content is paramount to persuading consumers to buy. Thirty-four percent of US online adults agree that they are more likely to purchase from brands that share content that interests them, according to Forrester’s Media And Marketing Benchmark Recontact Survey, 2022.”

From our perspective, offering this high level of relevance across the customer journey will demand brands and their partners to break free from the silos that often inhibit broad business transformation. This in turn calls for a new kind of model built from the ground up to enable collaboration between teams and different expertise.

Brands need a new approach for a new digital era.

In our own vendor profile, Pattisall notes that our “ambitious vision to ‘own the decade’ by preparing clients for the coming era of virtualization is backed by diverse digital talent, digital production strength, and a ‘can-do’ attitude that enthralls clients.” That can-do attitude is thanks in part to how we’re built differently, organized around an API-inspired model designed for seamless collaboration across disciplines and time zones.

We’re proud of what our teams have been able to accomplish under this model, like aligning broadcast and experiential expertise to earn the #1 spot on the Eventex 500 list of top event organizers at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Fast forward to a year later, and we’ve similarly brought together the brightest minds in digital to launch Making the Metaverse, a report that aims to demystify one of the industry’s biggest buzzwords and help brands find their footing in the immersive internet. Subject matter experts across the business built a foundational perspective on the metaverse when others were just waking up to the space. Our leadership in the space continues with Meet Me in the Metaverse, an ongoing video series exploring a variety of metaverse concepts, which recently featured Forrester VP and Research Director Mike Proulx.

The API model also enables the “land and expand” strategy, in which client relationships organically grow and evolve by quickly aligning emerging needs with new services and offerings. "It's a second-by-second appraisal of what you're doing and is a far stronger way of building the relationship," S4Capital Founder and Executive Chairman Sir Martin Sorrell told Marketing Interactive.

Unlocking growth at speed calls for a foundationally different partner.

As we enter a new era in digital, marketing priorities are evolving with consumer behavior. This is prompting CMOs to seek out meaningful transformation and growth at incredible speed. While others are named as leaders in the Forrester Wave™, our perspective is that virtualization will further challenge strategies built around big ideas preferred by some, and that the traditional holding company model that others find themselves within will impede the broad transformations brands will seek to remain competitive.

Alternatively, a digital-native team integrated from start is ideally suited to move the needle. “Often a brand will ask, ‘What’s the best way to help us grow?’” says Joe Olsen, Chief Growth Officer. “By gathering subject matter expertise across creative, media, data and technology services in a single P&L, we can quickly identify opportunities for the quickest path to value.” In other words, we’re built to help brands ride the wave of a new era.