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Don't challenge the market, change it.

We are a marketing consultancy for challengers.
We believe incumbent best practices lead to average results.
We use a challenger marketing playbook that delivers outsized impact.

We work with brands who want to punch above their weight.

Reebok
Q2
Bud
Nascar
Omnipresent
Old Mutual
Unilever
RTGS Global
Avery Dennison
Clair
Kinetica
Robinsons Land Corp
Autobooks
Green Aware
Attest
Boyne Valley Group
WPA Insurance
Brillo
Wamo
Matches Fashion
Jumeirah
Activision
Texas Roadhouse
Reebok
Q2
Bud
Nascar
Omnipresent
Old Mutual
Unilever
RTGS Global
Avery Dennison
Clair
Kinetica
Robinsons Land Corp
Autobooks
Green Aware
Attest
Boyne Valley Group
WPA Insurance
Brillo
Wamo
Matches Fashion
Jumeirah
Activision
Texas Roadhouse
Reebok
Q2
Bud
Nascar
Omnipresent
Old Mutual
Unilever
RTGS Global
Avery Dennison
Clair
Kinetica
Robinsons Land Corp
Autobooks
Green Aware
Attest
Boyne Valley Group
WPA Insurance
Brillo
Wamo
Matches Fashion
Jumeirah
Activision
Texas Roadhouse
Reebok
Q2
Bud
Nascar
Omnipresent
Old Mutual
Unilever
RTGS Global
Avery Dennison
Clair
Kinetica
Robinsons Land Corp
Autobooks
Green Aware
Attest
Boyne Valley Group
WPA Insurance
Brillo
Wamo
Matches Fashion
Jumeirah
Activision
Texas Roadhouse
Reebok
Q2
Bud
Nascar
Omnipresent
Old Mutual
Unilever
RTGS Global
Avery Dennison
Clair
Kinetica
Robinsons Land Corp
Autobooks
Green Aware
Attest
Boyne Valley Group
WPA Insurance
Brillo
Wamo
Matches Fashion
Jumeirah
Activision
Texas Roadhouse
Reebok
Q2
Bud
Nascar
Omnipresent
Old Mutual
Unilever
RTGS Global
Avery Dennison
Clair
Kinetica
Robinsons Land Corp
Autobooks
Green Aware
Attest
Boyne Valley Group
WPA Insurance
Brillo
Wamo
Matches Fashion
Jumeirah
Activision
Texas Roadhouse

We build brands that break through in a crowded market.

Our BrandOS framework creates the foundation for challenger growth by developing a brand that's relevant, authentic, and differentiated in the market.

We develop the strategies and systems to drive effective and efficient growth.

Our Go-to-Market planning process combines strong marketing fundamentals with challenger principles and practices to build a powerful growth machine.

We utilize cutting-edge technology to deliver best-in-class performance.

AI exploded onto the marketing landscape in 2023. But success in paid media has relied on mastery of machine learning & AI for years. Today’s performance imperative is to train, bound, and deploy machine learning in many different contexts with your highly curated data - with a strong strategic approach underpinning your tactical choices.

We design strategies and roadmaps for leading data management and martech adoption.

The risks and opportunities with first-party data are as big as they have ever been. There’s a huge opportunity to develop a competitive advantage in data and martech, but you need the right strategy, tech stack, and skill set within your team. The fastest growing area of our consulting practice helps businesses understand where the gaps are in their current data and martech capabilities and develop a roadmap to become best-in-class.

We develop campaigns and experiences that stand out and earn attention.

Our in-house team combines the creativity of a creative agency with the practicality of a production company to drive efficiency and accountability from strategy to execution. To us, this is the new “traditional agency” model.

Recent work

Paid media performance that sets sales records.

We began with Duckfeet in September ‘23 before the crucial Q4 holiday shopping period and made an immediate impact. Using our proprietary audit technology, Enodo, and our fast, rigorous onboarding process, we increased Google Ads conversions by 54% within just one month. Our strategic media mix adjustments and overall optimizations yielded an overall increase in revenue of 29% YoY, and set Duckfeet’s highest-ever single-day sales records broken several times in Q4.

Paid Media Planning & Buying

Building a cultural flywheel for customer acquisition

We worked with the marketing leadership team for Call of Duty to make the world’s biggest video game even more culturally relevant. We identified key cultural trends and built a cultural flywheel to reach and attract new players.

Go-to-Market Strategy

Developing a playbook for new product adoption

We worked with the product and marketing leadership teams at Q2, a leading core banking tech provider in North America, to develop a GTM playbook that would drive adoption with financial service providers. We ran two in-market testing flights with dozens of copy variations to identify the best positioning, and packaged up our learnings in an easy-to-use playbook that we then distributed to the partner FSIs.

Go-to-Market Strategy

Evolving the brand purpose for a heritage business with challenger ambitions

We worked with Reebok’s CEO and leadership team to evolve their brand purpose after their transition to a new owner and with a new CEO. We brought together the invaluable equity of Reebok’s history with their ambitions to challenge the industry again. Our work was presented to all employees and key retail partners.

Brand Development

Finding the whitespace in a crowded market to drive product and market expansion

We worked with the CEO of Bud to develop a brand positioning that would help the business stand out and grow internationally after their Series B. In a category as crowded as open banking, we focused on clarifying and simplifying the core of what makes the Bud product and proposition different.

Brand Development

Designing a digital communications plan for a new accelerator program

We worked with the innovation and marketing teams at Avery Dennison to develop the channel and messaging strategy for a new, global program focused on attracting start-ups in the B2B packaging and adhesives space. We developed the channel mix, messaging hierarchy, paid media plans, budgets, and ROI forecasts for three major markets.

Go-to-Market Strategy

Testimonials

What our partners say about working with us...
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"In an industry where brand is king, Rival helped us clearly define our brand strategy to challenge the sportswear industry. Rival was able to cut through the complexity of our business to help us transform our brand and culture for sustainable future growth."

Connor Altier
Global Brand Strategy Lead, Reebok

“Rival has a super power…their ability to draw relevant, differentiated insights out of research and then develop unique messaging that resonates and cuts through is second to none.”

Matt Webster
VP Marketing, Activision (Call of Duty Franchise)

“Working with Rival has fundamentally changed the way I think about brand. The work they’ve done has given us the foundation for how we want to grow and build this bank.”

Royden Volans
COO, Old Mutual

“Rival is impressive top to bottom. The full team was invested and engaged in the success of the project. The acumen and expertise they provide is unmatched. Not only are they on the cutting edge of media world and brand strategy, but they are also a joy to work with."

Jonny Ola
Managing Director, Q2 Innovation Studio

“Rival are head and shoulders above every other agency we’ve ever worked with.”

Justin Brady
CEO (USA), Duckfeet

The latest ideas and insights on challenger marketing.

Visit our Content Hub to view all our resources and research.

Podcasts

170% YoY Growth: Bespoke Beauty Brands' Secret to Disrupting the Beauty Industry

170% YoY Growth: Bespoke Beauty Brands' Secret to Disrupting the Beauty Industry

Read More
Articles

The B2B Brand Playbook: Lessons From Paddle's Journey to Becoming a $1.4Bn Unicorn

The B2B Brand Playbook: Lessons From Paddle's Journey to Becoming a $1.4Bn Unicorn

Read More
Articles

Top 10 Lessons from 100 + CMOs | Lesson 3 - Seek New Perspectives and Ideas

Top 10 Lessons from 100 + CMOs | Lesson 3 - Seek New Perspectives and Ideas

Read More

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