PROBLEM
Mastercard believes in “doing well by doing good” and delivers it through data and technology tools. They wanted to create an engaging platform, delivering support to people in refugee crisis in Ukraine.
SOLUTION
The “Where to Settle” project by Mastercard is an innovative, data driven tool to provide access to economic opportunity, but also to support local governments and communities, key stakeholders in the Mastercard ecosystem. The tool, which was the heart of the campaign, aggregated job and real estate data, anonymous Mastercard spending insights, and data from the Polish Central Statistical Office, making Where to Settle the most-awarded campaign at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity in 2024, including receiving the Cannes Lions Titanium, Grand Prix and more. The campaign also won the Effie Europe 2024 award.
RESULTS
The tool proved highly effective, attracting 242.17k unique users and facilitating 73.7k form submissions. Among Ukrainians assisting refugees, 92% found it useful, while 20% of refugees benefited from the platform. Additionally, 80% of Ukrainians and 57% of Poles expressed intent to use the tool again after engaging with it.
About Assembly: Assembly is the modern media agency, bringing together data, talent, and technology to deliver connected solutions.
PROBLEM
Sloane & Company, a leading strategic communications firm in the Stagwell network, often crafts press releases with 30+ data points. However, journalists typically focus on only a few, meaning valuable insights get overlooked. In a crowded media landscape, Sloane needed a way to deliver stronger messaging, ensuring the most compelling data points stood out. The goal: Increase the media impact and resonance of press releases.
SOLUTION
Sloane enlisted PRophet, Stagwell Marketing Cloud’s AI-powered PR tool, to analyze and optimize its press releases. PRophet identifies the three most relevant data points by scanning digital, social, and broadcast media trends. By streamlining client messaging, Sloane is able to increase media coverage by aligning insights with journalists who are most likely to find them relevant and newsworthy. As a result, press materials become more concise and targeted, cutting through the noise and improving pickup rates in an increasingly competitive news cycle.
RESULTS
By leveraging PRophet, Sloane achieved a 20% increase in media coverage over six to eight months. The AI-driven approach helped refine messaging, making pitches more engaging and aligned with journalist interests. Sloane reduced time spent on revisions while improving effectiveness, ensuring its insights gained traction. PRophet provided a data-backed strategy that enhanced PR impact, helping Sloane deliver high-impact narratives while improving visibility and engagement across key media channels.
About Sloane & Company: Sloane & Company is an industry-leading strategic communications firm delivering the right messages to the audiences that matter or advising on high-stakes deals and crises.
About Stagwell Marketing Cloud: Stagwell Marketing Cloud is a suite of AI-powered, data-driven solutions built for the modern marketer, spanning research, communications, creative, and media.
About PRophet: PRophet is the first A.I.-driven DaaS platform designed by and for the PR community that analyzes past stories to better predict future media.
ABOUT UNICEPTA
UNICEPTA is a leading global media monitoring and analytics platform headquartered in Cologne, Germany spanning eight countries and four continents with additional offices in Berlin, London, Paris, São Paulo, Shanghai, Washington DC, and Zurich. With 30 years of expertise in data-driven insights, it has scaled media monitoring and analytics capabilities with both earned and social media monitoring that empowers Fortune Global 500 companies.
ACQUISITION RATIONALE
UNICEPTA, a scaled DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) acquisition with global reach, added 475 employees and new media monitoring capabilities. It enabled immediate global scaling, U.S. client expansion, and cross-selling synergies, enhancing PRophet and SMC marketing tools. Replacing Cision Brandwatch with UNICEPTA saved $1 million across our portfolio. Clients include Adidas, Bayer, FIFA, TikTok, Toyota, Apple, and Airbus.
UNICEPTA AT STAGWELL
UNICEPTA adds reputation management and campaign tracking capabilities to PRophet’s journalist and influencer discovery, management, and content generation platforms. With UNICEPTA, the PRophet Comms Tech suite of AI-powered software and services now has over 600 engineers, experts, and consultants, working with clients like P&G, The European Commission, Meijer, Pearson, Airbus, FIFA, Stellantis, and Siemens. UNICEPTA follows the acquisitions of LEADERS and InfluencerMarketing.AI into PRophet in July 2024.
ABOUT CONSULUM
Founded in 2013 and pivoting exclusively to government clients in 2018, Consulum brings elite public relations, strategic communications, and diplomatic expertise to Stagwell’s global portfolio. With strategic offices in Riyadh, Dubai, Bahrain, London, Cape Town, and Kuala Lumpur, the firm has established itself as a premier communications partner for influential MENA government entities.
ACQUISITION RATIONALE
This acquisition establishes Stagwell’s communications stronghold in the MENA region while unlocking access to prestigious government relationships and multi-year, multi-million-dollar contracts. Consulum’s distinguished client roster includes the Kingdom of Bahrain Prime Minister’s Office, Government of Abu Dhabi, Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, and multiple Saudi Arabian ministries. With over 150 regional professionals, Consulum delivers immediate impact.
CONSULUM AT STAGWELL
Consulum complements Stagwell’s existing MENA footprint alongside LEADERS, Create. Group, Assembly Global, Allison, and Forsman & Bodenfors. This strategic alignment extends our advocacy capabilities beyond U.S. borders, positioning Stagwell to capture significant government communications opportunities throughout the Middle East and beyond.
ABOUT TEAM EPIPHANY
Team Epiphany is a multicultural experiential agency with capabilities specializing in progressive and culturally relevant marketing, consumer marketing, and influencer integration. Team Epiphany brings 20 years of experience in experiential marketing, PR capabilities across social, podcasts, and news, a strong network of celebrities and influencers, and expertise in campaign strategy and content product. Launched in 2004, Team Epiphany led influencer marketing before the launch of social media platforms
ACQUISITION RATIONALE
Team Epiphany adds a scaled experiential offering to our portfolio, bolstering our multicultural strategy. With a blue-chip base of entertainment, consumer products, and sports clients, clients with Team Epiphany include Airbnb, Target, American Express, HBO (MAX), Coca-Cola, LEGO, Campair, Amazon, Puma, Audi, and ESPN.
TEAM EPIPHANY AT STAGWELL
Team Epiphany joined our Constellation network which comprises of 72andSunny, Colle McVoy, Crispin, HUNTER, Jemini, Gold Rabbit Sports, Movers+Shakers, Redscout, TEAM, The Harris Poll, and Tinsel Experiential Design. With Stagwell, Team Epiphany has activated for clients with high-end experiential events, bringing to life Delta Airline’s JFK lounge opening and 2025 CES Sphere activation, Apple’s Creator Tour event announcing features of the Apple Watch Series 10 and iPhone 16, Walmart’s footprint at the inaugural Forbes Creator Upfronts summit, Dove’s activations with Venus Williams and at Super Bowl LIX, the season 3 premiere of Bel-Air, and more.
PROBLEM
At Stagwell, we believe a thriving news industry is not only the foundation of a healthy democracy, but also a critical platform for marketers and advertisers. However, recent discourse around brand safety – the effort of protecting a brand’s reputation by controlling its proximity to damaging content – has disproportionately hurt the news industry, as advertisers back away from news due to misconceptions and an abundance of caution.
SOLUTION
Stagwell’s Future of News Initiative aims to restore journalism funding and reconnect news with marketing. By uniting publishers, brands, and media leaders, we champion the idea that journalism drives informed consumers and business success. Our May 2024 launch debunked ad placement myths, showing ads near “unsafe” news perform just as well. We also highlighted the value of news consumers—73% of Americans follow news regularly, with 25% being highly engaged “news junkies.” We took the message global with events in D.C., New York, London, Cannes, and Davos, bringing together top journalists and marketers to explore sustainable models where journalism and marketing thrive together.
RESULTS
Since launching, the Future of News and News Advertising Study have been featured in over 50 top publications, with 500+ media mentions. We expanded from six to 20+ publishers and hosted C-suite leaders from Amazon, GM, Google, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, and more. To combat journalism defunding, we launched a consumer advocacy campaign and published a Fortune op-ed urging CEOs to prioritize ad spend in news. Stagwell committed to increasing its 2025 news ad spend by 22%, reflecting growing confidence in news advertising and rising publisher investments.
PROBLEM
Lenovo sought to successfully launch the Lenovo Aura Edition AI PC in the UK, following its global strategic framework. The goal was to engage the young creator audience—a tech-savvy and highly discerning demographic—by capturing their attention through high-impact, premium, and innovative experiences. The campaign needed to break through the noise of a competitive market, positioning Lenovo’s Aura Edition as a cutting-edge AI laptop line-up that resonates with the creative community.
SOLUTION
Lenovo tackled the challenge with an interactive experience showcasing its Aura Edition AI laptop. Through media, creative, and PR integration, the campaign introduced a groundbreaking ‘Aura’ activation using biometric data and Lenovo technology. 26 influencers and celebrities had their unique auras projected onto London landmarks like County Hall and the London Eye, amplifying reach as they shared their experiences across social channels.
RESULTS
The strong case study results demonstrated significant impact and reach. On the night of the event, an estimated 900,000 impressions were recorded, with an average dwell time of seven minutes, based on UK Route planning data. Additionally, the campaign achieved a remarkable reach of 13 million through national UK press coverage. Furthermore, influencers and celebrities contributed to an impressive, combined reach of 46.5 million.
About Assembly: Assembly is a leading global omnichannel media agency that merges data, talent, and technology to build more connected omni-experiences that make brands perform.
PROBLEM
Banks. Credit cards. Fintech. Payment platforms. Payment types. The modern payments landscape is incredibly crowded, and increasingly competitive, with more players vying for share of spend than ever before. Visa needed to modernize what they stood for in order to get the next generation of global consumers (18-34) to choose and use Visa more often.
SOLUTION
Visa’s iconic ‘Everywhere You Want to Be’ tagline once stood for global acceptance. But as payments options proliferated, its meaning faded. To stay relevant, Visa had to evolve what its brand stood for — from simply moving money to moving people forward.
For this next generation, the only thing certain in life is uncertainty, so they define progress differently than past generations. ‘Making it’ today isn’t about the destination; it’s about the journey. This insight helped Anomaly redefine Visa’s role in their audience’s lives: a champion for everyday progress where every transaction isn’t just viewed as a transaction, but instead as a step forward towards creating the life they want to lead.
With a new global positioning, Anomaly reimagined ‘Everywhere You Want to Be’, shifting the emphasis from where, to who you want to be, cementing Visa as a champion for every step of your journey.
RESULTS
The new positioning and platform are being applied across global marketing efforts, including the launch of a new global campaign that recently debuted during the Academy Awards. Pretesting of the campaign has signaled strong in-market success: the platform performed better than 99% of other financial service brands, and increased preference by 50%.
About Anomaly: Anomaly is a change agent within the communications industry, focused on creating business solutions by embracing the broadest definition of ‘creativity’.
PROBLEM
How can a large global B2B enterprise strengthen its position in an international market while establishing trust and credibility as a local player? When Salesforce, a leading global CRM platform, set its sights on reaching mid-market companies in India, it called upon Instrument to help shift perceptions and demonstrate how Salesforce meets the diverse needs of Indian businesses of all sizes and stages of growth.
SOLUTION
To reach mid-market businesses in India, Instrument developed a localized Salesforce brand campaign, blending the company’s traditional identity with market-specific elements. Using generative AI, the team streamlined production, gathered expert feedback, and refined concepts before bringing them to life with real people.
The campaign featured vibrant colors, traditional patterns, and real Indian customers, ensuring authenticity and relatability. Generative AI tools like Midjourney, Photoshop Beta, and Topaz Lab’s Gigapixel helped create and test visuals before budget allocation, enabling experimentation with talent, poses, and styling. AI-generated drafts accelerated feedback and approvals, improving time with real talent while incorporating insights from local market partners.
RESULTS
The campaign exceeded industry benchmarks, generating 237 million impressions and 758,000 clicks—2.5x the industry standard. It also drove a significant lift in brand metrics, including a 16-point increase in unaided awareness, a 12-point boost in advertising recall, and a 10-point rise in brand attribute recognition. Familiarity and favorability grew by 7 points, contributing to increased traffic to the campaign landing page and case studies.
About Instrument: Instrument is a technology-led brand, product, & marketing agency. They use the power of design and technology to help brands unlock their full potential – bringing companies and customers closer together and driving lasting business impact.
PROBLEM
As local news publications shutter, The Minnesota Star Tribune remains resilient. But its future looked uncertain as the news outlet faced an avalanche of challenges: the onslaught of AI and disruptions in technology, consumer behavior, revenue and monetization, and talent recruitment. The publication’s digital experience relied on outdated technology, affecting speed, quality and communication across the newsroom. The publication needed a rebrand and a digital reboot – with the ambition to complete both in 6 months.
SOLUTION
In its 157th year, The Star Tribune partnered with Code and Theory and Colle McVoy for a full transformation. Colle McVoy redefined its identity, while Code and Theory led a digital overhaul, creating a modern, accessible web experience. The rebrand included a name change to The Minnesota Star Tribune to reflect its statewide focus, expanded reporting, restructured leadership, and the launch of Strib Voices to amplify diverse perspectives. With a unified Stagwell team, the publication now stands as The Heart and Voice of the North, equipped with best-in-class technology and a future-ready strategy.
RESULTS
The relaunch of the Minnesota Star Tribune set the stage for sustainable growth, with an improved digital experience and a rebrand solidifying its position as Minnesota’s top news source. The work helped the Minnesota Star Tribune achieve results including a record traffic day, 32% of the monthly subscriber goal within 24 hours, and the launch was covered by outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fast Company, and Adweek for a total of more than 460 million earned impressions. With a revitalized brand and innovative business model, the Star Tribune is ready to lead local journalism forward.
ABOUT THE AGENCIES:
- The Code and Theory Network is the only technology and creative network with a balance of 50% creative and 50% engineers. Its unique makeup makes it the place where CMOs, CTOs and CIOs come together to drive results for their businesses.
- Colle McVoy is a full-service creative agency and certified B Corp known for building enduring relationships between forward-thinking brands and people.