Last year, FifthColor executed fan activations at 26 professional sporting events. We grew our marketing client roster by 34% and our production and fabrication clients by 20%. We turned a $10,000 community investment into $225,687 in donations for kids in need of weekend meals. And we did all of it from Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin — a small city of about 8,000 people, roughly an hour north of Milwaukee, that most people in the marketing world have probably never heard of.

This week, ADWEEK took notice. Our Founder and CEO, Justin Webb, has been named to the 2026 ADWEEK 50, one of advertising and marketing’s most competitive annual honors, recognizing the power players whose bold strategic thinking, operational excellence, and innovative leadership were instrumental to their companies’ success in the past year.

We’re proud. But more than that, we want to explain what earned this — because it’s a story about how we work, not just a badge on the wall.

What We Did in 2025

Let’s start with the work. In 2025, FifthColor delivered integrated marketing, brand activations, production builds, and experiential programs for some of the biggest names in sport and consumer brands: the U.S. Open, Ryder Cup, PGA, Special Olympics, College Football Playoff, LIV Golf, Nike, Puma, Kohler, Mercury Racing, Toptracer, Carbliss, and Nurri.

These aren’t small engagements. Broadcast-visible championship venues. Hospitality environments built to impress the most demanding clients in the world. Retail activations. Large-scale experiential programs where there is zero tolerance for a missed deadline or a broken handoff. Twenty-six events. One team. Flawless execution.

That track record is why we grew. And that growth — 34% in marketing clients, 20% in production and fabrication — happened during one of the most consolidation-driven periods in recent marketing history, when brands were actively reducing the number of agency partners they worked with. More on that in a moment.

Justin Saw Where the Industry Was Heading

Here’s the context that makes the 2025 growth numbers more meaningful: the marketing industry last year was defined by consolidation. Brands were demanding fewer vendors, more accountability, and seamless execution from concept to live delivery — with no finger-pointing when something went wrong between strategy, creative, production, and the event floor.

That shift exposed every agency built on fragmented service lines. And it rewarded the ones built differently.

Justin recognized this pattern before it became the industry’s mandate. He didn’t react to consolidation, he built FifthColor to be the answer to it years earlier. When brands started demanding a single accountable partner who could own the full journey, FifthColor was already operating that way. That’s not luck. That’s vision.

What This Means for Our Clients

The integrated model isn’t just an operational preference — it delivers measurable outcomes for the brands and organizations we work with. When strategy, creative, marketing, production, fabrication, and logistics operate as one team, clients get:

Faster speed to market. No waiting for handoffs between agencies or vendors.

Consistent storytelling. The same brand voice from the first strategy session to the live event floor.

Single accountability. One partner who owns the outcome, start to finish.

The result in 2025 was deeper client trust, repeat engagements, and expanded scopes of work, in a market where competitors were losing ground.

Proof That Purpose Performs

One of the moments we’re most proud of from 2025 had nothing to do with a championship venue or a global brand. It started with a phone call from the Sheboygan County Food Bank.

Their Food for Thought for Kids program provides weekend meals to children who rely on school nutrition programs but go hungry once Friday afternoon arrives. We donated $10,000 in strategy, creative, and media support and applied the same integrated approach we bring to every client. The campaign generated $225,687 in matched and residual donations, engaged 40% first-time donors, secured 24 major gifts, and provided weekend meals to more than 600 children across 26 schools.

The campaign earned a Gold Anthem Award, placing a small-city Wisconsin agency alongside Google, Patagonia, and AARP. That recognition matters to us, but what matters more is the 600 kids who had meals on weekends because of it.

We’ve donated more than $500,000 to local nonprofits since 2015 and have committed $200,000 to Special Olympics 2026. Sheboygan Falls is our home. Investing in it isn’t a PR strategy, it’s just the right thing to do.

Built to Scale: The 35,000 Sq. Ft. Bet on Wisconsin

To keep pace with demand and deepen our operational capacity, we completed a 35,000 square foot headquarters expansion right here in Sheboygan Falls. Not a coastal hub. Not a major market. Wisconsin.

That expansion created permanent career opportunities and has drawn top talent from across the United States and internationally. It’s proof that you can build something globally competitive from anywhere — if you build it right.

What’s Next

This recognition fuels us. The ADWEEK 50 puts Justin in the company of some of the most forward-thinking leaders in advertising and marketing, people driving the industry forward with the same discipline, integration, and purpose that FifthColor was built on.

But more than the recognition, it validates the model. Integrated beats fragmented. Purpose drives performance. And you don’t need a New York zip code to compete at the highest level.

We’re just getting started.