Fluent Rebrands as Riddle & Bloom, Expands Focus as “Ideas and Access” Agency for the Next Generation of Consumers

BOSTON, Oct. 24, 2017 -- Fluent, a national marketing agency originally built on exclusive college campus partnerships, deep consumer insights, and experiential marketing campaigns, has evolved into Riddle & Bloom, a specialized “Ideas and Access” agency to meet the growing demographic of the Next Generation of consumers, 14-35 year olds. The agency will continue to be led by Chip Rives as CEO and Darren Ross as President.

The agency’s new identity reflects its deepening mission to help the world’s leading brands understand and engage with the most puzzling, hardest-to-influence consumers: high schoolers, college students, and young professionals, which represent over half of the US population today.

“Next Generation consumers, including Millennials and Gen Zs, are very different than previous consumer audiences, with never-seen-before behaviors and expectations,” said Chip Rives, CEO of Riddle & Bloom. “Knowing how and when to connect with this unique group can be like solving a riddle for brand marketers. Over the past decade, our agency has excelled at solving these challenges through a combined approach of developing the right ideas that will resonate with this audience and then executing those ideas through special access channels. Our work has naturally been expanding to encompass the pre- and post-college markets where we’ve seen these approaches working. Our focus now is on further developing our capabilities and reach into these areas that we believe we’re uniquely positioned to serve.”

A Series of New Exclusive Partnerships

As part of its rebranding and extension of services, Riddle & Bloom has signed exclusive partnerships with three of the nation’s most significant organizations at the epicenter of collegiate campus life, service and recreation. The partnerships include:

• A renewed and extended exclusive agreement with the National Association of Campus Activities (NACA), which provides higher education members with programs and events focusing on student and professional leadership development, program planning, campus events, concert management, diversity and more.

• An exclusive partnership with NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation, collaborating to deliver competitive, fitness, wellness, and recreational initiatives and activities on North American campuses that serve an estimated 10.6 million students.

• An exclusive partnership with the National Association of Auxiliary Services (NACAS), the leading organization that supports the non-academic segment of higher education responsible for generating business through a diverse array of campus services that students need and value – such as food services, bookstores, housing, and transportation.

These exclusive nationwide relationships give Riddle & Bloom added exclusive touch points to connect with the Next Generation audience at the college level, both on-and-off campus.

Riddle & Bloom’s emphasis on ideas and access is seeded in its intuitive understanding of the Next Generation’s interests and passions through years of research into Millennial and Gen Z behavioral insights and trends. The reimagined focus for the agency with an “audience first” mentality across a broader audience, helps brands win fans through relevant, memorable experiential programs, digital and social media solutions and their continued strong student on-and-off campus programs. With a proven track record over the last decade, Riddle & Bloom continues to work with leading brands to deliver rich and meaningful campaigns that resonate with this Next Generation audience. Riddle & Bloom is based in Boston, MA, with a University Relations office in Columbia, SC, and new offices in San Francisco, CA and Winston-Salem, NC, with plans to further expand its national presence in the coming year.

ABOUT RIDDLE & BLOOM
As an Ideas and Access agency, Riddle & Bloom specializes in helping brands connect with the Next Generation consumer. A leader in college consumer marketing over the last ten years, the agency’s new identity reflects its deepening mission to help the world’s leading brands understand and engage with the most puzzling, hardest-to-influence consumers: high schoolers, college students, and young professionals. Riddle & Bloom brings an integrated approach of behavioral insights and unmatched access to these audiences through, experiential marketing, digital strategy, activations and ecommerce solutions, and exclusive partnerships to the market, to help leading brands understand and engage with today’s next wave of consumers nationwide. Through its exclusive industry partnerships with NACA, NACAS and NIRSA, Riddle & Bloom has a network encompassing more than 1,000 colleges and universities, extending to post college Millennials and younger Gen Zs. Clients have included major brands in the Technology, Retail, QSR, Personal Care, Ride Sharing, Banking and Finance, Food and Snacks, Music, Gaming, Wireless and Apparel industries. For more information, visit: www.riddleandbloom.com.

Contact: Colleen Irish
617-842-1511
[email protected]
@cirish