Matter - PR Agency of the Year

Company: Matter, Boston, MA
Company Description: Matter is a Brand Elevation Agency unifying PR, creative services, digital marketing and strategy into content-rich communications campaigns that inspire action and build value. Founded in 2003, with seven offices spanning North America, Matter works with the world’s most innovative companies across healthcare, high-technology, consumer technology and consumer markets.
Nomination Category: Corporate Communications, Investor Relations, & Public Relations Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Public Relations Agency of the Year

Nomination Title: Matter

For nearly two decades, Matter has pioneered PR and marketing innovation, creating comprehensive campaigns to elevate clients across healthcare, high-technology and consumer markets including Auth0, Blue Yonder, Cisco, Corindus, CVS Health, HARMAN, HMS, Johnson Controls, Level Ex, Modernizing Medicine, Nerdio and Sectigo.

Founded in 2003, a different period of great change and uncertainty, Matter was structured to be nimble. Apparent in how we budget, bill, hire and serve clients, we know discomfort is a constant and are positioned to pivot with the world and our clients. This allowed Matter to mobilize and adapt new/expanded offerings to serve changing needs in2020.

Our offerings extend beyond PR to support the marketing needs of modern brands – Graphic design, web development, video production and live broadcast capabilities to meet any creative demand; Digital marketing pros to amplify brand stories and increase ROI; Strategic counsel that understands how campaigns are brought to life across mediums, and the interplay between the mix– yielding measurable results.

Recently named to Forbes List of America’s Best PR Agencies, Matter has won 13 “Agency of the Year” accolades, including a Gold Stevie Award for Public RelationsAgency of the Year from The American Business Awards.

Forward Momentum: 2019

Matter achieved momentous growth in 2019, highlighted by a 17% increase in revenue.Building on its solid foundation, Matter significantly grew existing client programs,launched a dedicated healthcare division to support key fast-growing verticals and won a record number of awards.

A Year of Adaptation: 2020

Matter provided tailored support of clients’ needs across evolving remote and digital landscapes, launching new and expanded offerings to help brands pivot between approaches and budgets, including internal/external comms and marketing programs, original programming (podcasts, virtual events, live/remote video) and reimagined brand strategy. Diverse in-house capabilities allowed support of shifting client priorities to end the year poised for success in 2021.

Strategic Acquisition

In March 2020, Matter announced its strategic acquisition of Calypso, a Marketing and Branding Agency based in Portsmouth, NH. Calypso has a 20-year history of serving worldwide clients in several high-profile industries aligned with Matter’s initiatives, including energy, finance and healthcare.

New Brand & Website

Summer 2020: Matter launched its new website and brand, further highlighting its unique market position to satisfy diverse organizations’ integrated marketing needs. The new site and branding are the culmination of Matter’s continued evolution and expansion into the key service offerings, industries and geographies to better support the world’s leading companies.

Diversity + Inclusion

Matter continued execution of its Diversity Committee’s five-year strategic plan, making great strides toward goals of recruiting a more diverse workforce, introducing more inclusive benefits, expanding Employee Resource Groups and ensuring real leadership opportunities are equitably available to all.

After closing out a high-growth 2019 full of new client wins and strategic program expansions, the team welcomed 2020. The acquisition of Calypso, a crown jewel in Portsmouth’s thriving PR and marketing community, brought a highly skilled team and strategic alignment across core competencies and target industry verticals. By mid-March, we were all working remotely.

Matter’s integrated PR and marketing services make it well-positioned to weather industry-changing storms as seen in 2020. While many brands cut marketing and PR spend across industries, Matter’s unique breadth of offerings allowed it tonot only respond to clients’ shifting needs, but add new clients looking to pivot traditional priorities and guide them between new mixes of integrated PR and marketing approaches.

From helping brands leverage influencers as a source of remote ad spend to conceptualizing, producing and executing robust live and remote video projects and podcasts, Matter was able to pull the right levers at the right time to move in-step with clients on their journeys through new storytelling formats and audience engagement initiatives – while adding numerous new clients along the way.

According to the Boston Business Journal, the growth of the PR industry has been stagnant in recent years. However, Matter was named the Largest PR Firm in Massachusetts by the Boston Business Journal in 2020. Due to a year of successful pivots, Matter is poised for growth in 2021, already hiring 45 new employees since January 1, 2021 with plans to keep growing.

In our attachments you will see the following:

-Two example case studies and testimonial videos of how we pivoted to execute virtual events on behalf of our clients during the height of the pandemic: CVS Live Better Product Launch and the NEVCA Annual Awards Show.
-Matter research conducted in the summer of 2020 to see the impact of influencers and social media during the pandemic that was featured by Forbes and Forrester (1:20 mark of video in link below).
-A live virtual event executed by our healthcare practice, Matter Health, in partnership with the Health IT Marketing Association.
-A press release highlighting the continued momentum of our healthcare marketing practice, Matter Health, highlighted by the recent addition of 13 new client partners from across the healthcare continuum.
-A press release announcing the extension and expansion of our strategic five-year relationship with client Blue Yonder, the world leader in digital supply chain and omni-channel commerce fulfillment.
-Being named to Forbes inaugural list of America’s Best PR Agencies 2021.