Building Bridges: SBS Comms & 829 Studios
By John O’Brien, Founder & Claudia Traverso, President
Like so many of our clients, SBS has been in a very fortunate period of hyper-growth these past few years. In 2024 alone, we added 23 people to our team and nearly 20 new clients to our roster. Much of this growth has been propelled by the success of our OnBoard program for early stage companies, which saw nearly 95% growth in clients and 180% growth in revenue between 2023 and 2024. As we look ahead, there’s no sign of slowing down.
Our fast growth and incredible reputation for being some of the industry’s best media strategists has made us a coveted player in the communications market. Over the past year, we’ve explored strategic partnerships that accelerate our expansion and make us stand out from other agencies. Experimentation and doing things differently has always been core to our DNA. When we first met 829 Studios, we recognized a remarkable opportunity to continue this ethos. SBS and 829, one of the largest integrated marketing agencies in New England, are joining forces to shake up our industry and become a communications powerhouse for the next era.
In some ways, 829 is everything we are not: While we focus on media relations, strategy and press results, 829 is focused on content and design, web development, SEO, influencer relations, paid media and so much more. And yet, we’re more alike than we are different: We’re relentless in our pursuit of high impact results, growing rapidly and the best at what we do. We’ve always considered our laser focus on earned media to be a core strength as an agency, and this partnership allows us to maintain that, while giving us the ability to access an expanded ecosystem of services that supplement our work so that we can offer even more for our clients. SBS and 829 will operate as “sister agencies,” offering the services we’re known for, while collaborating on clients that can benefit from an integrated approach.
Collaboration is the New Comms Advantage
Clearly, the growth strategies of our tech clients have rubbed off on us. Not long ago, the world of technology was a village of walled gardens. Companies fought fiercely for revenue, locking in customers with aggressive contracts and pointless differentiation that would make it hard to move to a competitor. Today, the tech industry is far more open and cooperative. The most successful products have built bridges with partnerships and APIs to prioritize the customer experience. The key is to focus on your expertise and leverage others’ expertise rather than trying to become everything to everyone. This is what SBS and 829 are doing – we’re changing nothing about our focus and work for clients, but giving them more, if and when they need it.
This spirit of growth and adoption is central to who we are. Last year, we wrote a blog called “Communications Has Never Been More Important in the Age of AI.” It was a direct response to the echo chamber of doom and gloom around AI disrupting our industry. What people weren’t seeing is that The AI Era makes communications more critical. If AI is to synthesize and present information — including information that directly influences people’s buying decisions — shouldn’t businesses more closely consider the content they’re putting out, and the channels through which they disseminate that information? PR and Marketing professionals have a new opportunity in front of us: How can we ensure our clients are presented and/or stack-ranked favorably against competitors in popular AI systems like ChatGPT? In this new environment, digital marketing techniques like paid media and social, influencer engagement and SEO become even more imperative for building comprehensive communications programs that successfully seed the right information through the right channels, to the right people.
Our partnership with 829 allows us to stay ahead of an entire industry as the media landscape and AI evolve over the next decade. Together, we’ll continue working with many of the biggest brands in the world, from deep tech to consumer goods, and support companies of all stages of maturity. In this expanded ecosystem, expect to see even more experimentation, expansion and excellence from us in 2025 and beyond. Same SBS, but (even) better.
We’re grateful to our people, the incredible Brew Crew, for getting us to this point and to the team at 829 for embarking on this adventure with us.
Let’s go!