score (self-awarded): 8
Number of staff: 1023
New business / billings: £94 Million
Summary of the year so far: "2013 was a good year for us, ending on a high by being awarded Campaign’s Agency of the Year, and setting high expectations for 2014.
At the beginning of the year we sat down with our global team to develop and launch 2020 Connections, a new planning process that we believe is the future of planning and we’re already seeing great results. eBay specifically called out our ‘connected system’ approach as one of the reasons for our appointment. Despite being unable to pitch for over £200m billings of new business this year due to existing client category management, we’ve won over £90m new billings including the return of Hilary’s Blinds, who we had parted ways with in 2012 , begun new relationships with eBay and 20 more new partners, plus we’ve retained RSPCA and BSH.
The work we’ve been creating with our clients has been recognised too. We’ve been shortlisted for an unprecedented 16 Media Week awards, won a gold & silver at the Global Festival Of Media Awards, and were one of the only 2 UK media agencies to be shortlisted for a Cannes award. Plus our work with Sky and WKD won at the Drum Digital Awards and our work with Time To Change received a Marketing Engage award.
We’ve also continued to build our talent pool with the third wave of apprentices and strengthened our digital offering with the arrival of Dan Chapman as Head of Digital and Graham Field as Head of Programmatic."
Awards won so far in 2014:
Global Festival of Media Awards
Gold, Creative use of media for Snickers, "mis-spelling"
Silver, Best targeted campaign for Snickers, "mis-spelling"
The Drum Digital Trading Awards
Most effective cross-channel buy for WKD, "sound clash"
Best use of performance for Sky personalisation
Marketing Week Engage Awards
Newspaper and magazine category for Time to Change
Pick of the Year:
Barclays, "life skills" by Maxus
Turkey of the Year:
Not supplied