top 100 digital 2018 agencies 2018 · case studies p83. this section showcases a collection of case...

Top 100 Digital Agencies 2018

The definitive listing of the UK’s largest digital agencies

Project supported by

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2018

Contents

Managing Editor Donna-Marie Bohan

Editorial enquiries to [email protected]

Contributors Ben Davis Laurence Bird Leonie Mercedes Natalie Gross Nikki Gilliland Rebecca Sentance Ruth Mortimer

Business Development Team Danyon Billings Diana Amaral

Project Management Team WNS Global Services

Design Christopher Hipson

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form without permission from the publishers. All details are correct at the time of going to press and subject to change.

Editorial

p4. State of the industryAgencies are undergoing a period of business transformation, facing threats from in-housing, consultancies, new sources of competition and clients aggressively managing costs. Report Editor Donna-Marie Bohan looks at industry trends over the last year.

p14. Too Important to Outsource? The New Reality for DigitalBIMA Co-President and TH_NK Managing Partner Natalie Gross reflects on how the changing face of the BIMA membership mirrors the broader transformation facing the industry.

p18. Finding the Right Talent to Meet Digital DemandsIn an increasingly complex political landscape, UK agencies are tackling new difficulties in recruiting and retaining talent, writes Senior Writer Nikki Gilliland.

p21. The Growth of Diversity InitiativesResearch Analyst Leonie Mercedes explores the benefits of diversity and inclusivity in marketing and suggests how organisations can foster more inclusive workplaces.

p24. The Power of Data HumanisationSurging demand for the study of consumer behaviour is driving the neuromarketing technology market. Econsultancy Research Director Laurence Bird discusses how new techniques are delivering strong business results.

p26. The Changing Role of Agencies in the “madtech” EraThe past few years have brought new pressures to bear on agencies and their business models. Prompted by revelations over the widespread practice of pocketing rebates, brands are increasingly scrutinising their contracts with agencies, writes Econsultancy Deputy Editor Rebecca Sentance.

p29. A User’s Guide to Interesting UpstartsEconsultancy Managing Partner Ruth Mortimer discusses the new sources of competition challenging the future agency model.

p32. How Does AI Play a Critical Part in the Future of Agencies?Econsultancy Editor Ben Davis takes a practical look at AI and agencies of the future.

The Top 100

p35. How the guide works

p36. Top 100 agencies by fee income

p39. Top full service and marketing agencies

p41. Top design & build agencies

p42. Top creative agencies

p42. Top technical agencies

p43. Top regional agencies

p44. Most respected agencies and influential industry professionals

p45. An Interview with Peter Veash, Founder and CEO of The BIO Agency

p47. Top 100 profiles

p80. Ones to watch

Case studies

p83. This section showcases a collection of case studies submitted by a number of the Top 100 agencies. These stories highlight examples of successful work that demonstrate digital excellence. Each case study outlines a summary of the agency’s work, objectives, strategy and key tactics, results and awards won.

3Top 100 Digital Agencies 2018

https://pagefair.com/downloads/2017/01/PageFair-2017-Adblock-Report.pdf

http://www.wearefriday.com

https://bynd.com/news-ideas/beyond-welcomes-chief-creative-officer-karyn-pascoe

https://bynd.com/news-ideas/beyond-appoints-judy-gibbons-as-chair

https://bynd.com/news-ideas/beyond-appoints-judy-gibbons-as-chair

https://bynd.com/news-ideas/mind-the-gender-gap-our-mission-to-get-more-women-into-tech

https://bynd.com/news-ideas/how-agile-hr-is-changing-the-way-we-do-business

https://bynd.com/news-ideas/find-us-austin-tx

https://bynd.com/news-ideas/privilege-is-not-a-condition-for-potential-how-londons-digital-agencies-are-tackling-diversity

EDITORIAL

State of the industry

2018 financial data shows that the Top 100 digital agencies have grown on average 20% year-on-year from £2.3bn in 2017 to over £2.8bn (Figure 1). The Top 5 agencies hold 40% of the entire fee income of the Top 100 whilst over half of the entire fee income is held by the Top 8 agencies alone.

Hitting the top spot in 2018 for the second consecutive year is Accenture Interactive, followed by IBMiX in second place and Atos Digital Services in third place. Cognizant Interactive made a debut appearance coming in at number four. The professional services firm Cognizant announced its place in the ranking with the acquisition of agency Zone in 2017. WPP merged POSSIBLE, Cognifide, Acceleration, Fusepump and Salmon last year to form Wunderman UK, which is ranked at number five.

New entrants include agencies such as EY-Seren, Somo, Mirum, 1000Heads, Feed, Maverick, Poke, Croud, Think, Maginus, Edit, W12, Tryzens and Dare Digital.

Some large agencies were unable to disclose financial information or unwilling to participate this year. This sees the loss of Deloitte Digital and Publicis.Sapient from the Top 10, which are part of large networks that come with complex financial organisation.

Other notable players missing from the ranking include Havas, PWC Digital Services, AKQA and R/GA (part of the Interpublic Group of Companies and this year’s peer-selected most respected agency).

Though we still believe fee income to be the most accurate way of ranking digital agencies, the difficulties in calculating and disclosing the value results in inevitable omissions throughout the ranking table.

As Research Manager, Donna-Marie Bohan manages projects across the research team to produce market insights, best practice guides and trends and innovation reports for the digital marketing industry. In addition to her role as Managing Editor of the Top 100 report, Donna-Marie focuses on managing research for EMEA markets. You can follow her on LinkedIn:

linkedin.com/in/donnamariebohan/

Agencies are undergoing a period of business transformation, facing threats from in-housing, consultancies, new sources of competition and clients aggressively managing costs, especially those that are related to media. Report Editor Donna-Marie Bohan looks at industry trends over the last year.

4 Top 100 Digital Agencies 2018

Historical data demonstrates that the dominance of the Top 10 agencies in the ranking is a trend that continues to persist. Over a five-year period, the average net fee income of the Top 10 agencies has steadily increased to £159,565,388, whilst the average fee income of the remaining agencies in the ranking has been more or less stagnant (Figure 2).

Agencies are asked each year to select a primary function. Figure 3 compares the percentage of agencies under each primary function with each function’s percentage of the total fee income of all agencies in the ranking. Full Service/Marketing agencies dominate, with 65% of the total fee income, followed by Design & Build (18%), Technical (15%) and Creative (2%).

Figure 1: Total fee income of the Top 100 Digital Agencies

£2,334,594,268

£2,807,259,600

2017 2018

£59,420,319 £73,721,049

£95,108,505

£127,940,101

£159,565,388

£9,826,679 £10,661,007 £11,145,872 £11,724,745 £13,465,790

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Average fee income: top 10 digital agencies

Average fee income: rest of digital agencies

Figure 2: Average fee income of the top 10 digital agencies vs. average fee income of the rest (2014-2018)


The presence of agencies primarily categorised as technical has grown over the last five years. The demand for technical agencies is further evidenced by the fact that technical development, on average, accounts for 24% of fee income from digital work. Figure 4 illustrates that creative work commanded the greater share of fee income five years ago, but technical development has outstripped creative since then.

An area of work that has grown in recent years is User Experience, which now accounts for an average of 14% of fee income from digital activities. This development goes hand in hand with evolving consumer expectations for personalised experiences.

2%

15%

18%

65%

6%

11%

25%

58%

Creative

Technical

Design & Build

Full service/Marketing

% of total number of agencies % of total net fee income of Top 100 agencies

Figure 3: Percentage of Top 100 agencies by primary function vs. percentage of total fee income by primary function (2018)

5%

12%

9%

11%

18%

13%

18%

10%

16%

21%

19%

1%

7%

7%

8%

11%

12%

13%

14%

15%

19%

24%

Software re-sales

Social media

Managed services (e.g. ad serving, hosting, applicationsmanagement)

CRM and email

SEO

Media planning/buying

Ecommerce

UX

Marketing (planning, strategy or consultancy)

Creative

Technical development

Average % of total fee income 2018 Average % of total fee income 2014

Managed services (e.g. ad serving, hosting, applications management)

Figure 4: Average percentage of total fee income across business disciplines (2014 vs. 2018)


The proportion of net fee income derived from Social Media, SEO and Ecommerce, on the other hand, has declined. This trend can perhaps be understood within the broader context of increasing consolidation of marketing activity in-house. As more digital work becomes commoditised, the focus is shifting to marketing planning, strategy and consultancy services (15%).

Agencies were also asked to select the top five sectors in which they service clients. As Figure 5 shows, retail, financial services and travel and leisure are the top sectors serviced by digital agencies this year.

11%5%6%7%8%

12%16%17%

22%23%24%25%25%

27%33%34%

45%65%66%

Other

Gaming and gambling

Education

Real estate and property

Manufacturing and engineering

Food and drink

Charities and not-for-profit

Transport

Publishing, media and entertainment

Healthcare and pharmaceutical

Government and public sector

Consumer goods

Energy and utilities

Telecommunications

Automotive

Technology

Travel and leisure

Financial services

Retail

Figure 5: Main sectors served by the Top 100 digital agencies in 2018


Industry highlights and key themesThe following analysis and commentary looks back on some of adland’s defining moments and key themes in 2018.

The disruption of media buying

Transparency issues and changes to programmatic buying practices are radically changing the role of agencies. Based on a 2017 study, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) reported that 60% of agencies are taking steps to address media transparency within the client-agency relationship.1

Concerns about non-transparent practices such as rebates and hidden fees have subsequently fuelled growth in client demand for auditing services. While some clients are taking control of programmatic work, with an ANA report showing that over a third of advertisers are moving programmatic work in-house and away from agencies2, this year’s number one agency on the ranking is attempting to capitalise on the market trend by getting into the media buying space itself.

Accenture Interactive launched a programmatic services unit, encompassing media planning, buying and management. Accenture Interactive also offers media auditing and pitch management services in addition to media buying. Issues related to this have not gone unnoticed, with some observers remarking on a conflict of interest at play. Martin Vinter, Head of Media at specialist media consultancy Ebiquity, says:

“Whatever firewalls and segregation of media buying and auditing will be in place, it won’t appease anyone. This is clear conflict – operationally and philosophically. In the age of ‘transparency’ – and all that this encompasses – savvy marketers will see that this as a significant issue. Impartiality, whether agency side or consultancy/audit side is crucial for the industry to weed out the issues that have existed in the past. This development unfortunately goes against the grain of recent positive developments.”

Agency holding groups refine their propositions as their business models come under attack

2018 was certainly a tough year for some agencies, with Top 100 entrants noting the loss of some clients or the end of contracts. The industry is being disrupted by different forces but are the shifts occurring somewhat sensationalised?

It seems that the industry is riddled with a few contradictions. On the one hand, there has never been as much money spent on advertising, yet the rise of ad blocking and the challenge for brand cut-through suggest that advertising is now less effective. Fee income of the Top 100 is growing yet the existential threat of agencies is much talked about and lamented.

Are agencies really struggling for survival?

The threat of consultancy disruptors, of course, has received much attention in the last couple of years. However, there are other competing forces at play, most notably the rise of in-housing, the formation of independent collectives as well as the emergence of new sources of competition (a trend discussed in greater detail by Econsultancy’s Managing Partner Ruth Mortimer on p. 29).

Let us take a closer look at some of the main issues impacting existing agency groups.


1. The third phase of strategic development

Michael Farmer, author of Madison Avenue Manslaughter: an inside view of fee-cutting clients, profit-hungry owners and declining ad agencies, contends that holding groups are in their third stage of strategic development. According to Farmer, this third phase refers to centralising and downgrading silos. He puts forward a view that agencies are short of talent and insufficiently integrated or creative, so holding companies are taking over as super-agencies.3

This idea mirrors Publicis Groupe’s ‘The Power of One’ strategy or WPP’s concept of ‘horizontality’, a term that represents a model put in place by Sir Martin Sorrell to encourage people in different agency units to work collaboratively in order to offer a broader range of services to specific clients. Most of the agency holding companies have been refining their propositions in some way in recent years.

2018 was marked by the ominous departure of Sorrell from WPP in April. Since the departure of the industry magnate, speculation and prediction has been made about the breaking up of WPP or the consolidation of its agency brands.

Controversy aside, Sorrell’s exit from WPP and the arrival of Mark Read as his successor highlights that the marketing and advertising industries are deep in transition. Luke Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of Croud, says:

“The holding companies undoubtedly need to seriously evolve to meet fresh industry demands. And, in the case of WPP especially, this has posed some serious questions over whether an agency of that scale should be restructured to reflect market trends and the current climate.”

What does this post-Sorrell world mean for agencies? Perhaps the industry will shift more towards people-based marketing and customer centricity to meet current market demands. For example, agencies have recently been investing in their own proprietary tech, a factor driving further consolidation in the market, and building better audience insight tools to help clients with media and creative work. Clients, after all, are seeking more agile, simplified and flexible arrangements with partners in order to create connected customer experiences in a fragmented media landscape.

“The holding companies undoubtedly need to seriously evolve to meet fresh industry demands. And, in the case of WPP especially, this has posed some serious questions over whether an agency of that scale should be restructured to reflect market trends and the current climate.”

Luke SmithCo-Founder and CEO, Croud


Luke Smith also reflects on the cultural implications of these shifts within the industry:

“We’re also seeing the somewhat sad demise of the age of the personalities in the agency world, with Sorrell and Vincent Bolloré having departed and surely a couple of the other leaders not far off. This means the holding companies are in danger of becoming incredibly corporate and faceless with grey offices in Zone 2. A far cry from what agencies used to be known for and this isn’t what attracts young talent.”

Whether or not this sentiment is widely shared, future agency models, at any rate, will continue to evolve. In order to drive change for clients, the agency groups need to alter how they do business with them.

2. In-housing digital

Growing pressure on the client-agency relationship has been a consistent theme for some time but it has never been more apparent than now. There are a couple of reasons why this is the case, including mounting concerns about brand safety as well as the dominance of Google, Facebook and Amazon, which has meant that advertisers are buying directly from tech platforms.

Furthermore, in-house teams are under more pressure to prove marketing effectiveness and drive growth. Econsultancy’s Future of Marketing research backs up this theme, with 60% of advertisers surveyed agreeing that proving marketing effectiveness is more important now compared to 2 years ago. Added to this, ‘maximising the ROI on campaigns’ is considered the top objective for 49% of advertisers over the next five years.4

With driving growth in a high-volume world of always-on content at the top of the marketer’s agenda, work is migrating in-house or to lower cost countries – another force competing with agency groups.

3. Seeking solutions – a hybrid model in a complex ecosystem

While in-housing is a notable trend, the demand for solutions is high. Clients are seeking partners to help them navigate the mire of technological change.

A lot of work can be done at scale in-house but the extent of in-housing depends on a brand’s budget and what it is prepared to organise.

Speaking at DMEXCO in Cologne this year, Blake Cahill, SVP Global Head of Digital Marketing and Media at Royal Phillips, suggested that a hybrid model of working with partners, depending on a brand’s business maturity, is the way forward.

Cahill spoke about how Royal Phillips manages a lot of processes, testing and ongoing production internally and how it has flipped its model of partnering with agencies by working with them on strategy first and then creative execution. The brand has also changed its remuneration practices by awarding higher remuneration to strategy and consultancy services.

Not all marketing activity will occur in-house at every brand. Clients may also choose different partners for ideas and execution. While it may be an operational challenge to bring the briefing process and flexible teams together, Cahill argues that a blended approach to partnership ensures that brands develop the best of breed partners for each engagement.

Consequently, we see a very mixed landscape, with agencies, consultancies, big tech platforms, adtech and martech companies as well as newer innovative players all trying to reinvent and compete for the same lines of work.

Notwithstanding the competition, BIMA Co-President and Think Managing Partner Natalie Gross argues that the mix of business types is a positive development for the digital community in an article where she discusses the broader transformation facing the industry (p. 14). This mixed ecosystem, she argues, ensures creativity, new perspectives and a willingness to drive change.

“The industry is polarising, with one end being driven by the need to automate and drive down costs. On the other, the drive upwards – taking marketing into the boardroom via digital and operational transformation.”


Indies form their own collectives to compete with industry incumbents

While networked agencies are undergoing a period of transformation, independent agencies are not standing still either.

Independent agencies account for 48% of the Top 100, whilst agency groups represent 52% of the agencies in the ranking. Despite the fairly even split in representation, agency groups hold 76% of the total fee income of the Top 100, whilst independents hold just 24% (Figure 6).

One independent agency spokesperson comments on this disparity:

“The industry is polarising, with one end being driven by the need to automate and drive down costs. On the other, the drive upwards – taking marketing into the boardroom via digital and operational transformation.

“We, like many mid-sized agencies, are pinioned between these two forces – undercut by AI and cheap Asian resource, on the one hand, and outgunned by the mega global consultancies on the other.

“Clients, too, are conflicted. Is marketing a commodity to be bought on a cost basis as procurement believe, or is it a strategic growth driver worthy of significant investment? The challenge for a mid-sized independent is to persuade clients that our prices are worth paying and our talents up to muster.

“Sadly, smaller agencies still suffer from the perceptions that, as they are smaller, they should be cheaper, when in fact the value they create is significant.”

This independent agency spokesperson suggests an opportunity in this middle ground position:

“As the holding company behemoths increasingly flounder to respond to clients’ needs for more agile and responsive vendors, and the biggest consultancies struggle to produce breakthrough insight and creativity, the independent agency offers a flexible (and affordable) alternative, and one capable of forming enjoyable and lasting relationships.”

Another trend developing is independents combining in owner-led groups to offer an alternative proposition. For example, ten independent agencies joined forces this year to form an owner-driven collective network called Together Group and combine their capabilities on client briefs. Whilst agency groups are restructuring their businesses to respond to various challenges, indies are seeking collaborative models to scale their own capabilities to meet client demands and compete with industry incumbents.

52%48%

76%

24%

Agency groups Independents

% of total number of agencies % of entire fee income of Top 100 agencies

Figure 6: A comparison of agency groups vs. independents in the Top 100 (2018)


The Facebook/Cambridge Analytica debacle

The arrival of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)5 in May and the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica (CA) data breach scandal marks a turning point for the industry. The implications of these events for marketing and advertising are heightened scrutiny over privacy and data security issues and a shift in power from advertisers to consumers.

Croud Co-Founder and CEO Luke Smith says:

“Back in the day, no one talked about data privacy at dinner parties. However, this chain of events has got people talking about it in homes across the globe, cementing the issue in mainstream conversation.”

The marketing and advertising community had already been taking a more cautious approach towards social media platforms even before news of the Cambridge Analytica scandal emerged. Concerns around brand protection, along with the added complications surrounding GDPR implementation, were already making brands think more carefully about their relationship with data-driven ad platforms.

Michael Hewitt, Content Manager at Stickyeyes, thinks that the Cambridge Analytica scandal will probably go down as a mere footnote in the context of marketing and advertising:

“Facebook is clearly going on the charm offensive to win back the trust of both users and advertisers. Whilst Cambridge Analytica demonstrated that the gateway between advertisers and users was woefully unguarded, in many respects, at its base level, Facebook did and will continue to operate very much in the way that it was intended to – to provide advertisers with a means to reach micro-targeted audience segments with highly personalised messaging. The adage of “if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product” is very much what Facebook relies on.”

Hewitt believes that Facebook will more than likely come out of this as a more mature advertising and marketing platform. He says that the company will tighten its policies, it will look to raise the standards it holds advertisers and developers to over time and it will more than likely remove or replace targeting options, but the core business will remain the same. He says that whilst many will point to Facebook’s slowing user growth and slump on Wall Street as a sign that this scandal has hit Facebook hard, he believes that those problems are rooted in issues far bigger than Cambridge Analytica.

It remains to be seen whether the CA incident will result in an appreciable migration away from Facebook. If this scenario unfolds, agencies might capitalise on the opportunity to reach audiences with other media types. If government regulation becomes a likely scenario in the future, this could impact the effectiveness of advertising on the platform and brands may shift their media buying strategies.

Yet heightened interest and concern about privacy can only be a good thing for advertising and data-driven marketing. Luke Smith says:

“In the long run, I have no doubt that this will help the industry to move on positively. Increasingly, brands will have to make far more effort to forge valuable, two-way relationships with customers that will make for better engagement for all parties.”

Facebook did and will continue to operate very much in the way that it was intended to – to provide advertisers with a means to reach micro-targeted audience segments with highly personalised messaging. The adage of “if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product” is very much what Facebook relies on.”

Michael HewittContent Manager, Stickyeyes


Talent pipeline concerns remain

Now a somewhat clichéd theme, talent and skills are, once again, major concerns for the industry, as discussed by Econsultancy writer Nikki Gilliland (p. 18).

How can the marketing and advertising industries ensure that the talent pipeline meets new digital demands?

Julian Ward, Group Head of Talent Acquisition at Stickyeyes, believes that the industry needs to consider how it is raising awareness and educating the next generations of talent about the opportunities that digital can offer, and to think more laterally about the skills and qualifications that are relevant to what the industry does. He says:

“We come across many undergraduates and school leavers who are largely unaware that there is a rewarding career waiting for them in the digital industry. We come across mathematics undergraduates who have relatively little understanding of the opportunities available to them in fields such as paid search and programmatic advertising, or school leavers unaware that a digital apprenticeship could offer them more than a marketing-orientated degree.”

Given that the demand for digital talent greatly outweighs the supply, Ward believes that it is incumbent on industry professionals to engage with educational establishments and spark passion in the next generation of digital marketers:

“Once we secure talent, it is then up to us as forward-thinking organisations to nurture that talent through training and development, to leverage relationships with technology partners to make sure that their talent continues to keep abreast of the ever-evolving digital landscape, and to keep innovating with new ideas that keep people engaged.”

The growth of diversity initiatives

Conversations about diversity came to the fore this year, culminating with developments such as the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements against sexual harassment and the #WomenCannes campaign.

Long listed for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award, publications such as Emily Chang’s Brotopia have appeared, highlighting inequalities within the tech industry and how women and minorities are speaking out to address the inequalities that exist.

There is evidence that change is occurring within the media and advertising industries. Analyst Leonie Mercedes discusses the growth of initiatives and gradual progress regarding diversity and inclusion issues (p. 21).

It has certainly been another interesting year for the industry. For further commentary and analysis on other themes such as the role of AI and the future of agencies (p. 32), the convergence of martech and adtech and the power of data humanisation, please read the subsequent articles in this report, which are brought to you by the Econsultancy team.

1 https://www.marketingdive.com/news/ana-60-of-ad-agencies-

are-working-to-address-media-transparency/448314/

2 https://www.ana.net/content/show/id/47123

3 https://www.trinityp3.com/2018/06/confused-about-the-advertising-industry/

4 https://econsultancy.com/reports/the-future-of-marketing/

5 https://econsultancy.com/reports/a-marketer-s-guide-to-

the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/


EDITORIAL

Too Important to Outsource? The New Reality for Digital

BIMA1 is the national industry association for digital and tech in Britain, with a membership comprising a broad cross-section of the consultancies and agencies listed in this report. We represent more than 300 corporate members with a combined annual turnover of more than £1.3bn and a workforce of 15,000 people.

Our members give us a unique perspective on the changing face of the digital landscape. They determine the events we host next. They influence the evolution of the BIMA Awards categories. They inform our BIMA Councils and Think Tanks and tell us what the focus of these Councils should be.

Over the past 12 months, for example, our AI, Immersive Technology and Blockchain events and publications have been among those generating the greatest levels of interest. Why? In a particularly wide and, in many cases, misunderstood landscape, these events and publications have enabled more of our members to understand the big picture, develop points of view, share case studies and create shared definitions. Crucially, our Think Tanks are helping members determine how and when to build these emerging technologies into their own businesses.

This article addresses the key movements and trends we have seen develop in the industry over the last year. It looks at the ways in which our members are adapting to the new landscape, and the new client-agency relationships being driven by those changes. It also explores the future because one of the things our membership demonstrates most clearly is that standing still and offering a generic proposition is simply not an option.

Formerly CEO of Amaze, Natalie Gross is currently Managing Partner at Think where she is responsible for driving the agency’s vision and growth strategy. Natalie has spent the past 18 years guiding global clients through their most ambitious digital programmes. She is also Co-President of BIMA, the industry association representing digital in Britain. In her tenure, she has transformed BIMA, evolving its purpose and structure. You can find her on LinkedIn:

linkedin.com/in/natgross/

BIMA Co-President and TH_NK Managing Partner Natalie Gross reflects on how the changing face of the BIMA membership mirrors the broader transformation facing the industry.


Making emerging technologies part of the offering

In the past 12 months, many of our members have established (or are establishing) niche practices alongside their overall offering, and they have developed partnerships with technology providers. Others are now taking the bolder move of placing some emerging technologies at the core of their business, transforming their propositions wholesale.

This is where the breadth and depth of our membership gets interesting. We are seeing the larger consultancies quickly integrating the ‘mature’ end of emerging tech into their enterprise solutions. In addition, we are seeing unique offerings coming out of startups and niche consultancies such as Us Ai and Rewind. These businesses are building reputations for collaboration and sharp creative thinking to support brands in learning about and applying emerging technologies like robotic process automation, conversational user interface and Interactive VR.

We see the same speed of change and diversity of technology in the shortlist for the 2018 BIMA Awards. Entries to the Awards were received from global brands such as Google, client-side teams like Cancer Research UK and Sony Music, startups like Hero and The Bot Platform and hundred-year-old(ish) brands like the BBC. The list of organisations that have entered has never been more diverse.

Why such diversity? Emerging tech is no longer at the fringe of organisations and in siloed business areas. It has grown to become a de facto organisation-wide issue commanding a great deal of Board attention.

As emerging tech and digital becomes more integral to business, brands are considering that it is too important to outsource and are instead building in-house capabilities en masse.

As Jon Davie, Chief Customer Officer at Zone (part of Cognizant Interactive), puts it: “Clients want and need digital capabilities and culture at the heart of their organisation. That is driving an increase in brand-side digital practitioners. Increasingly, it will be unthinkable to outsource entirely to agencies.”

“Clients want and need digital capabilities and culture at the heart of their organisation. That is driving an increase in brand-side digital practitioners. Increasingly, it will be unthinkable to outsource entirely to agencies.”

Jon DavieChief Customer Officer, Zone


The new working relationship

Determining the needs of brand-side practitioners within the digital community has become a key focus for BIMA.

BIMA established a new Brand Council because we understand that, whilst there are clear similarities across clients and agency-side practitioners, some client-side challenges will be unique to driving digital transformation from the inside.

The relationship between clients and agencies will change fundamentally from a transactional and customer-supplier relationship to one of much greater collaboration, working with a mix of internal and external expertise, in a multi-location, multi-size and multi-agency composition.

Consultancies and systems integrators (SIs), already providing a home for large brands and governments to spend their digital pounds, will continue to use their strategic advantage and focus on providing end-to-end digital experiences. Whereas £500K-£2m customer experience, CMS and app projects may well be the core income for some agencies, they may well simply be a small part of a much bigger enterprise technology play for consultancies and SIs. For agencies in general, that makes commercial life considerably more challenging.

Yet more than one type of business can enjoy success. Not every brand will bring everything in-house. Not every agency or consultancy will be required to deliver enterprise-grade services. Many clients will want something different from the external partners they procure, both commercially speaking and in relation to the specialist skills, working approaches and, importantly, personalities that they bring.

We have noted the growing trend towards collaboration with small, nimble, complementary specialists. ‘Micro’ consultancies, as they are sometimes referred to, often have expertise or points of view that brand-side practitioners want. Nadya Powell, BIMA’s Head of Diversity and Inclusivity and Co-Founder of creativity and change consultancy Utopia, is a firm believer in this emergent model:

“Many brands are looking for something new: smaller, more agile partners who can work together in a nested way to solve some very specific problems. This is a great opportunity for individuals who want to work in the digital industry but don’t want to go down the agency path. By working together and using networks and peers to try different things, people can work in beta, learn and play.”

Tarek Nseir, Founding Partner of digital transformation agency Think, believes that collaborative networks are essential for delivering a unique experience for their clients.

“What is different today about small independents is the network effect these specialists are having. At Think we talk about ‘fierce collaboration’ and believe that working together in a meaningful way is a fundamental driver for the digital economy.”

The convergence within the digital community – agencies, consultancies, SIs, tech providers, startups and brands – no doubt heralds the most challenging and competitive landscape our industry has seen. Yet from BIMA’s perspective, we also see this as a wonderful opportunity to learn together.

As Pete Trainor, founder of AI consultancy Us Ai, says: “We are all battling on the same field for the first time in quite a while because of the technology changes that are happening. Coming together – to learn, collaborate and build connections – is fundamental to the continued and accelerated growth of the digital community in Britain.”

Collaboration in action

Seeing collaboration as the future is something that applies just as much to BIMA as to the members we serve. We have launched a strategic partnership with Microsoft in the last 12 months, so that our members can nurture their existing tech talent and empower employees and customers to be more collaborative and creative.

The partnership has quickly developed into a reciprocally rewarding relationship. Through the partnership, members across England and Scotland are engaging in technology roadshows, connecting with senior stakeholders and accessing R&D funds. They also have early access

“Many brands are looking for something new: smaller, more agile partners who can work together in a nested way to solve some very specific problems. ”

Nadya PowellHead of Diversity and Inclusivity, BIMA


to software in development, meaning digital agencies will now have direct influence on the development of core Microsoft software.

From Microsoft’s perspective, the company has a genuine desire to partner with a broad cross-section of business and seeks to influence client-side brands by scaling new products with a digital community.

Big tech companies like this, after all, are not just looking to place their products and relationships in the hands of a select few. They wish to engage with the broadest range of organisations that are flowing with ideas and appetite for technology adoption. We expect more of these partnerships to emerge within the wider digital community in future.

The end of the generic proposition

Operating in an incredibly competitive and fast-changing environment will not benefit everybody, however. The landscape for digital and integrated communications agencies is a tough place to be, particularly for those that have failed to establish an effective point of difference in their brand proposition.

Offering a point of differentiation is not a new concept, but the demand for high-value skills has masked the fact that some agencies have not got it together enough propositionally. Now though, as the market has become more discerning, a generic proposition will no longer be enough.

Marrying business needs to an agency’s clearly differentiated proposition will become increasingly important when it comes to clients selecting their agency partnerships. Over the last 12 months, we have seen many of our members sharpen their propositions. AKQA is a wonderful example of this with their acquisition of Universal Design Studio and Map Project Office; a clear case of an agency marrying its track record and pedigree for innovation with products to move a brand forward.

New perspectives

Much discussion has been made about the rise of the consultancies, but one thing that BIMA knows for sure is that the evolving structure of the digital landscape is unpredictable.

Yet the dominance of one type of agency over another risks stifling creativity. At the heart of BIMA is an ambition to create a total community that is brimming with new perspectives and a desire to take our industry forward. The breadth of our membership shows that we are a home for this full spectrum of business.

The new playing field of big and small, full service and specialist, full ownership and collaborative independents, in-house and externally sourced expertise, is a fascinating composition.

As our industry evolves, our ambition remains to be an effective voice for all.

1 https://www.bima.co.uk/

‘The Future of Digital Agencies’ event in June 2018, hosted by Microsoft in association with BIMA and BIMA member Wirehive, explored the role that digital agencies can play in driving digital transformation.


EDITORIAL

Finding the Right Talent to Meet Digital Demands

Talent supply remains one of the biggest challenges faced by digital agencies today. As many organisations strive to keep up with increasing digital demands, while also taking on a more data-driven and analytical approach, recruiting professionals with the right technical skills can prove difficult.

London-based marketing agency, Big Group, says that “the plethora of platforms and systems now available to clients mean that there is an ever increasing need for technologists that can master different applications and systems.”

This, Big Group suggests, combined with “the talent pool of creative technologists not expanding at a rate matched by demand, has the potential to hamper and restrict the vibrant independent sector of digital agencies.”

A report by Deloitte backs up this notion. It suggests that, despite significant uptick in investment in emerging technologies, just 16% of organisations believe their talent pools have enough knowledge and expertise to deliver a digital strategy. Similarly, just 23% of respondents say that their leadership team has a clear understanding of certain technology and how it will impact their business.1

It seems agencies are stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, they need to innovate, but on the other, they lack the ability to do so. As a result – and despite confidence in digital capabilities being low – this has not stopped some from betting on new technology.

Many agencies are now investing in artificial intelligence. While this temptation to invest is understandable, it can be dangerous without the specialist knowledge to harness and implement the technology correctly, potentially leading to underwhelming and gimmicky campaign results.

Nikki Gilliland is a writer for the Econsultancy blog, covering topics including mobile, UX, social media, ecommerce, and much more from the world of digital marketing. You can follow her on Twitter or connect via LinkedIn.

@nikki_gilliland

linkedin.com/in/nikki-gilliland-6b28b05a/

In an increasingly complex political landscape, UK agencies are tackling new difficulties in recruiting and retaining talent, writes Senior Writer Nikki Gilliland.


The Brexit effect

As the UK prepares to leave the European Union, there is the question of whether Brexit will have a damaging effect on agencies both recruiting and retaining the digital talent they need.

Will Brexit widen the digital skills gap even further?

With negotiations still underway, it is difficult to predict the future with any real certainty. What we can do, however, is analyse the effect of the referendum and its results so far.

As stated in Econsultancy’s ‘Navigating Brexit’2 report, net migration of EU citizens to the UK has fallen from 189,000 to 90,000 since June 2016. Looking at this figure in the context of talent, it correlates to more than a 50% reduction in the growth of the potential EU talent pool for UK-based organisations.

For agencies trying to adjust to Brexit and its repercussions, an immediate focus should be to build a picture of the potential impact across employee roles. This could be in terms of specific job roles (i.e. within programmatic or data science) or even agency locations whereby there might be greater intention to leave.

Meanwhile, when it comes to recruiting talent, it is important for agencies to emphasise the openness of their organisation, and to build on existing reputations for openness and diversity. This extends not only to nationality, but also gender equality and disability.

Of course, agencies are not only worried about talent. The ‘Brexit effect’ also seems to be hampering client confidence, with many agencies this year expressing concern over a lack of spending on new projects and campaigns.

One way to combat this, as agency Two UK suggests, is simply to win more clients, effectively keeping a steady turnover whilst the lower budgets are in place, in order to be in a position to capitalise through growth when normal business resumes.

How are agencies tackling talent issues?

Some Top 100 agency submissions this year point towards poorly targeted higher education initiatives as a big reason behind recruitment issues. Crafted suggests that “due to the nature of marketing courses, graduates often aren’t able to focus on technical knowledge of digital channels, and instead develop this within their early roles in digital.”

Of course, a good balance is necessary. While the main focus might be on the shortage of technical roles, agencies must still work hard to foster creative talent in order to strike a good balance of skills in multiple areas.

Other factors such as the growing desire for professionals (particularly in creative roles) to freelance can also play a big part. At the same time, we have also seen an increase in the use of fixed-term contracts. This confusing mix of how and where professionals want to work – and how agencies are able to accommodate them – can result in further difficulties in recruitment and organisational set-up.

Going back to a lack of skills, it appears the government is taking steps to address the issue. Earlier this year, the Institute of Coding was announced. It is a consortium of more than 60 universities, businesses and industry experts, working together with the aim of helping graduates build the right skills, in fields ranging from cybersecurity to industrial design.


In the meantime, it is also up to agencies themselves to implement training in order to upskill existing employees and train new talent. Initiatives like this can also enable agencies to look beyond traditional university education and foster talent from underprivileged or less traditional backgrounds.

RAPP is one agency that has put a big emphasis on this, having worked with the IPA and Creative Pioneers to broaden its search for talent to encompass school and college leavers rather than just graduates. It has also taken part in ‘Advertising Unlocked’, which was a day-long event attended by over 25 young people from diverse backgrounds, with the view to finding them a future role.

Luke Smith, CEO and Co-Founder of agency Croud, comments on some of the ways in which the marketing and advertising sectors can ensure their talent pipeline meets digital demands, emphasising the role that technology can play:

“Technology is fundamental to the future success of agencies. This should be applied to recruitment. We should be making it more appealing for the next generation of talent who want to work in a fast-paced, innovative business environment. We have a big development team at Croud, and everyone is expected to be involved in the innovation process.

“Time and time again, our team surveys highlight training and development as key priorities, so we’ve made this central to every employee’s development plans. Thinking like a tech business in terms of the spaces you create for people helps, as does making everyone a shareholder in the business.

“We have also shifted away from a city-centric model, which has allowed us to source talent from up and down the country, as well as overseas. We have our famous (I think) Croudies – a worldwide network of more than 1,900 freelance digital specialists – who share their skills and provide coverage of more than 100 markets in 77 languages. We’re harnessing talent that has chosen to work in a different way, and we’ve got a surplus of supply – this is the future of working.”

Proof that investment is worthwhile

Econsultancy’s 2018 Digital Trends3 report suggests that there is temptation for agencies to neglect skills and training, particularly if they are struggling commercially or do not have a readily available budget.

However, the report also highlights how significant investment in digital skills and training is strongly correlated with high performance.

The report shows that top-performing companies (i.e. companies that exceeded their top 2017 business goal by a significant margin) are twice as likely to be investing significantly in digital skills and education during the coming year.

This provides food for thought for agencies, especially in the context of the competitive nature of the industry, and the growing demand on organisations to innovate in specialised areas.

Essentially, it is no longer enough to sit back and hope talent lands on the doorstep. As education evolves and political uncertainty continues, it is up to agencies to empower employees and invest in the real skills needed to innovate – not just the technology.

“Technology is fundamental to the future success of agencies. This should be applied to recruitment. We should be making it more appealing for the next generation of talent who want to work in a fast-paced, innovative business environment.”

Luke SmithCEO and Co-Founder, Croud

1 https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/press-releases/articles/less-

than-half-of-executives-believe-they-have-digital-skills.html

2 https://econsultancy.com/reports/navigating-brexit-a-

provisional-guide-for-marketers-and-hr-talent

3 https://econsultancy.com/reports/digital-intelligence-

briefing-2018-digital-trends/20 Top 100 Digital Agencies 2018

EDITORIAL

The Growth of Diversity Initiatives

Many events over the last 12 months, culminating in the establishment of the Time’s Up1 movement against sexual harassment, have thrown a spotlight on the inequalities that exist in the creative industries.

It is an issue that is also clearly on our minds in marketing, as entries to this year’s Top 100 Digital Agencies highlighted the opportunities afforded by having an inclusive workforce and identified the challenge of hiring diverse talent. Meanwhile, some of the industry’s movers and shakers have been taking action to raise awareness of the experiences of minorities in the media.

At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this year, the #WomenCannes2 campaign invited women and men to wear black on the last day of the festival as a symbol of solidarity with Time’s Up, while Pitch Magazine Founder and Editor Sherry Collins ran an ad3 on the back of her magazine to draw attention to the harassment that some women of colour face at the festival.

It could be argued that inequalities in the industry stem, at least in part, from a lack of representation.

A 2016 study among 272 digital agencies by BIMA and SapientRazorfish4 found that 39% of agencies have a 50:50 gender split, but that the majority of respondents (54%) say that their agencies have not reached a gender balance. Furthermore, just under one-fifth (18%) of agencies say that they have a workforce that is 100% white.

We know that diversity and inclusivity is good for business. McKinsey & Company’s 2017 report ‘Delivering through diversity’,5 shows that greater gender, ethnicity and cultural diversity within an organisation is correlated with greater profitability. So why aren’t more minorities represented in marketing? Put simply, change is hard.

“While it’s easy to take the moral high ground and wave a banner, shouting ‘This must change!’, the onus is on us to create and foster an environment that enables change to happen,” says Claire Rogerson, Employee Engagement and Talent Development Specialist at agency RAPP.

Leonie Mercedes works on Econsultancy’s research team and contributes to the researching, writing and editing of reports. With a background in B2B journalism, she has formerly held positions at Contentive and Newton Media Group.

In this section, Research Analyst Leonie Mercedes explores the benefits of diversity and inclusivity in marketing and suggests how organisations can foster more inclusive workplaces.


More minds, more ideas, more impact

In an industry that depends on engaging with people, whoever they are and whatever experiences they have had, it makes sense to nurture a diverse and inclusive workforce.

“It is absolutely vital that a range of perspectives and voices are part of the creation of communications because our audience is incredibly diverse – even within one ‘target audience’,” says Jo Wallace, Creative Director for marketing communications company J. Walter Thompson and founder of Good Girls Eat Dinner,6 a regular dining event which connects inspirational, female role models across the creative industries.

Rogerson agrees: “Marketing is all about people,” she says. “We are not all the same… What motivates us, our beliefs, our values, our cultural heritage, our norms, our politics, our vices and virtues – all of these are shaped by our backgrounds and lived experiences.

“Our industry, therefore, needs to reflect this in its creativity and output. For that, we need a diverse workforce.”

Kelsie Nattrass, Lead Solutions Consultant at customer experience management platform Sprinklr, says: “From my own experience, a diverse company and office culture is just plain inspiring.”

She adds: “We must champion and build workplaces that have a mix of people... Otherwise, we end up doing and creating the same thing over and over, expecting innovation to just happen.”

A cultural shift

McKinsey’s ‘Delivering through diversity’ report also identified that companies find improving the representation of diverse talent a particularly challenging goal. Implementing such a fundamental cultural shift requires us to think more deliberately about the decisions we make in the workplace.

As Rogerson explains, many of our actions and decisions at work are made at an unconscious level. “Rather like driving a car, we’re not constantly thinking about what we’re doing and why, we are just doing it, and sometimes we get into bad habits,” she says.

“Diversity has to be a deliberate effort before it’s muscle memory, and that responsibility is on all of us in the industry today,” adds Nattrass.

McKinsey says that companies that are leading in their diversity efforts ensure that their inclusion and diversity initiatives align with their overall growth strategies. Companies tend to fall short if they lack leadership accountability for meeting their diversity and inclusion goals, have not built the business case for it or have not prioritised an action plan.

There is no lack of understanding in the creative industries of what more inclusive teams can offer, says Rogerson. “What really has been lacking is accountability, and with it, the impetus to do things differently. This is changing now, and I see evidence of this on a regular basis,” she says.

“We must champion and build workplaces that have a mix of people... Otherwise, we end up doing and creating the same thing over and over, expecting innovation to just happen.”

Kelsie NattrassLead Solutions Consultant, Sprinklr


Taking action

To understand how to build more inclusive workplaces, it makes sense to look at what is creating inequalities in the first place and address those issues. Three factors to consider are a perceived lack of access to the industry (you cannot be what you cannot see, as the saying goes), unconscious bias and how to nurture and retain the talent you have.

Nattrass believes that there are two key moments that create inequalities in the tech industry: getting your first job and getting promoted later: “Both of these moments in your career can be extremely challenging if you don’t have the right relationships in place.”

As many talented people may not be aware of the opportunities that exist in marketing, it is important that agencies reach out.

“We also need to make our industry more inviting and accessible, so that we attract more diverse candidates and create more role models from a diverse background,” says Rogerson. “The mantra ‘see it, be it’ is so true. We need to actively create opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds to shine and inspire others.”

Accordingly, RAPP hires apprentices for roles where possible, and is developing an internship programme designed to create opportunities for young homeless people to get work experience. To avoid unconscious bias, it is piloting blind CVs and running mandatory unconscious bias training for all staff.

Meanwhile, the Creative Mentor Network7 identifies and connects talented young people from

diverse backgrounds with those working in the creative industries, and The Diversity Taskforce8, a collective of marketing and advertising agencies, runs ten initiatives. These initiatives include conducting independent diversity audits and running a cross-industry mentoring platform, with a view to promoting inclusivity in the sector.

Once companies secure their talent, they should take steps to ensure that people feel supported. “Make it clear how people can complain if they don’t feel that they’re being treated fairly. This promotes a clear vision for an inclusive organisation and in turn will attract a spread of good candidates,” says Wallace.

“Train people around the company’s outlook on diversity, promote that way of thinking, so people are under no illusion that it’s something they want to foster,” she adds.

Changes like these require a shift in mindset, which can take time. However, as marketing teams should reflect the audiences they seek to engage with, inaction would be imprudent.

1 https://www.timesupnow.com/

2 https://www.womencannes.com/

3 https://www.thepitchfanzine.com/assumenothing/

4 https://www.bima.co.uk/Article/16-Dec-2016/Digital-agencies-suffer-

from-widening-skills-gap-and-lack-of-diversity-amid-Brexit-worries

5 https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/

our-insights/delivering-through-diversity

6 http://www.goodgirlseatdinner.com/

7 https://www.creativementornetwork.org/

8 http://www.valensteinandfatt.com/taskforce.html

“Train people around the company’s outlook on diversity, promote that way of thinking, so people are under no illusion that it’s something they want to foster.”

Jo WallaceCreative Director, J. Walter Thompson


EDITORIAL

The Power of Data Humanisation

Neuromarketing – the use of neuroscience to measure the impact of marketing and advertising on people – is not new. In 2013, Guy Reason suggested on Econsultancy’s blog that “Somewhere around 2009, neuromarketing arrived in the public conscious with a tidal wave of enthusiasm”1. Reuters reports that the global neuromarketing technology market is expected to reach $100 million by 20232.

Neuromarketing techniques include not only eye tracking, facial encoding and brain imaging (fMRI and EEG), but also sensory marketing and psychological techniques. These have a variety of benefits, from seeing what potential customers look at when viewing an ad or content marketing to analysing brainwaves to gain a better understanding of whether consumers like a new product or ad. These techniques are not bulletproof and have been criticised as being ineffective at best, if not misleading, as clinical psychologist Vaughan Bell proclaimed in 2015, “The marketing industry has started using neuroscience, but the results are more glitter than gold”3.

Fast forward to 2018 and one might be forgiven for thinking that this year is all about data, analytics and machine learning, yet there seems to be a resurgence in the popularity of the good old human side to insights. This stems from the need for brands to truly understand what really drives people’s decisions and therefore what may impact their revenues.

The numbers alone are not enough to tell this story so marketers, data scientists, market researchers and their colleagues are in search of an answer to their eternal question: why? Why do some customers buy service A rather than B? Why are some customers satisfied by a product while others are not? Why do they stop shopping when our predictive model shows they should? Why is our latest campaign not showing ROI? The list goes on and the way to quench their thirst for knowledge – the only way – is not more data, but the right data together with true insights into these human beings to unearth the reasons behind the numbers.

As Econsultancy’s Research Director, Laurence Bird leads the content and research strategy and team for Econsultancy’s subscribers globally. Laurence’s extensive experience in digital, media and marketing includes research and strategy positions at Haymarket, Time Warner, Disney and the IAB as well as consultancy work. Laurence holds a global top-tier Executive MBA from Imperial College Business School, where she specialised in Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Marketing. You can find her on LinkedIn:

linkedin.com/in/lbird/

Surging demand for the study of consumer behaviour is driving the neuromarketing technology market. Econsultancy Research Director Laurence Bird discusses how new techniques are delivering strong business results.


Some great examples of such initiatives are included in this year’s Top 100 entries. For instance, Total Media has developed a behavioural product, the Empathy Engine. This product combines in-house and third-party machine learning techniques with a range of neuroscience and behavioural science methods to understand consumers’ trait psychology and the emotion that sits behind what they are telling.

They layer clients’ first-party data with their Empathy Engine output and use data science techniques to develop audience segments that go beyond standard demographics. Using their behavioural planning approach, they create the signals and environments to buy against for each segment.

Total Media also uses biometrics to evoke the right emotions in their creative and measure the change in the audience’s perception of a brand using associative emotion analysis.

Other agencies such as Collective create human-first experiences to help businesses communicate with greater purpose, trust and relevancy. Their approach – Human Natured Thinking – blends behavioural science, technology and creativity primarily within the digital, social and content space.

Nomensa combines expertise in psychology, user-centred design and accessibility to create meaningful digital experiences that are shaped around those who truly matter: the users.

At Lab, psychology, behavioural economics and neuromarketing are used to craft the modern user experience. Lab’s achievements include evolving their neuro offering into a concise set of frameworks, models and approaches that deliver incredible results. Looking into the future, Lab Joint Founder and Director Tom Head says: “We want to be the most human-savvy digital agency in the country.”

Data humanisation can be powerful. If done well, it can lead to actionable insights that can help explain consumer behaviour and customers’ motivations. These insights can result in tangible benefits, including advertising and packaging that resonate with customers, more relevant products and services as well as improved user experience and satisfaction levels. Ultimately, data humanisation has the power to generate positive outcomes such as increases in branding metrics, conversion rate and revenue – a win-win for businesses and customers alike.

1 https://econsultancy.com/blog/62199-neuromarketing-

is-dead-long-live-neuromarketing

2 https://www.reuters.com/brandfeatures/venture-capital/article?id=34591

3 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/28/

vaughan-bell-neuroscience-marketing-advertising

“Ultimately, data humanisation has the power to generate positive outcomes such as increases in branding metrics, conversion rate and revenue – a win-win for businesses and customers alike.”


EDITORIAL

The Changing Role of Agencies in the “madtech” Era

As brands seek to close the loopholes that allowed agencies to absorb part of their ad spend, agencies have been experiencing a sharp downturn of revenue, often exacerbated by brand cost-cutting in other areas.

While all this is happening, the landscape of advertising and marketing technology has begun to shift. The increasing convergence of martech and adtech – previously thought of as separate entities with different jurisdictions – has given rise to a new hybrid known as “madtech”, which blends marketing, advertising and technology.

Some people, including Chief Marketing Technologist’s Scott Brinker, argue that the martech/adtech distinction was always arbitrary. Nevertheless, the notion that the two have merged has dissolved boundaries that existed, or were perceived to have existed, between media buying and ad buying, between in-house and agency spending – throwing the traditional role of the agency into flux.

How are agencies adapting to this new era of uncertainty? Between

increasing financial pressures and a changing technology landscape, agencies are reinventing their business models in order to stay vital to brands, evolving into a consulting role in which they offer technological expertise to help brands navigate the merged world of madtech.

The rise of madtech

What is the difference between marketing technology (martech) and advertising technology (adtech)? At base, both are new types of technologies designed to aid in the promotion of a brand, business or product.

Ad tech is often thought to be for media buying and paid media, while martech is seen as being for personalisation and owned media. As such, adtech is typically regarded as the province of agencies (which typically control media spend), while martech is considered to be the province of in-house teams.

However, while these divisions might once have had some basis in truth,

Rebecca Sentance is the Deputy Editor of the Econsultancy blog, publishing in-depth articles about strategy and best practice in martech, emerging technology, search and SEO, digital transformation and more.

@rainbowbex

linkedin.com/in/rebecca-sentance-0953b0b9/

The past few years have brought new pressures to bear on agencies and their business models. Prompted by revelations over the widespread practice of pocketing rebates, brands are increasingly scrutinising their contracts with agencies, writes Econsultancy Deputy Editor Rebecca Sentance.


the current reality is much more fluid, making the industry distinction between mart ech and adtech fairly arbitrary. In an article entitled ‘Why the dichotomy between adtech and marketing tech is dysfunctional’, Scott Brinker points out that the tools for managing social media advertising are not generally classed as adtech, despite the fact that they lie within the realm of paid media.1 The same goes for ads on search engines.

“As for the line between agencies and in-house teams, it almost goes without saying that there is no such line any more,” wrote Brinker. “Some brands have brought programmatic ad buying in-house. Even when the ad buys are external, DMPs [Data Management Platforms] are increasingly based in-house because brands want to control their own audience data.

“Vice versa, agencies are providing all kinds of marketing technology services beyond the realm of advertising: website development, search engine optimization, social media marketing, conversion optimization, content marketing, influencer marketing, and so on.”

As awareness of this fluidity permeates the industry, a new concept has been coined to refer to the convergence of martech and adtech: the catchily-named “madtech” (often written as “MAdTech”).

The age of madtech is seeing brands increasingly moving into spaces that have previously been occupied by agencies. For example, Ayal Steiner, Managing Director APAC at Outbrain, explained at a Which-50 Media roundtable that many brands are now looking to execute adtech buys themselves, directly from their marketing stack, a task that would usually be carried out by an agency.2

“That raises a big question of what is the role of a media agency there, and how they can evolve to add value to the equation.”

Evolving business models

At the same time, growing pressure to end established practices, which have allowed agencies to turn a profit by pocketing rebates, instead of ploughing them back into brands’ campaign spend, has prompted agencies to reinvent their business models.

The purpose of a media agency is to help brands navigate the world of advertising, which has traditionally been done by allowing them to manage media budget and execute media buying on behalf of a brand. With the boundaries between martech and adtech breaking down, however, brands have been taking control of media spend, bringing their marketing and advertising activities in-house and under one roof.

“Some brands have brought programmatic ad buying in-house. Even when the ad buys are external, DMPs [Data Management Platforms] are increasingly based in-house because brands want to control their own audience data.”

Scott BrinkerEditor, chiefmartec.com


This does not mean that brands do not need agencies. Instead, as the complex and fragmented landscape of madtech companies continues to grow (despite popular belief that it will inevitably consolidate3), brands are sorely in need of experts in technology who will help them to navigate this crowded marketplace, and agencies are moving into that role.

Agencies are now strategically advising clients on the best technologies to employ and, in many cases, are influencing the technology being developed to suit the needs of clients.

The commentary from agencies featured in Econsultancy’s Top 100 Digital Agencies 2018 ranking echoes this trend. One agency wrote:

“As we constantly evaluate the services we offer and their impact on our clients’ digital performance, we often find there’s an internal need among prospects and clients to better understand the latest technology and approaches that could deliver greater value to their digital activity.

“As such, we believe there’s an opportunity for us to develop our training offering, with the aim to educate and inform attendees across a variety of topics, via workshops and classroom-based training. […] Our training will also be supplemented by bespoke sessions or digital consultancy, which we’ve already begun rolling out to clients.”

Another Top 100 entry confirmed the need for agencies to reinvent themselves in order to stay relevant.

“We’re seeing many brands take core skills such as a web development and digital marketing in-house, and using agencies for consultancy and new thinking... So we all have to reinvent ourselves to remain in business.”

The road ahead for agencies in the madtech era will still be a challenging one, as they face new obstacles such as increasing competition from businesses that are looking to move into the same space.

Nevertheless, far from being squeezed out by the convergence of martech and adtech, agencies are instead seizing the opportunity to tap into new markets and develop a business model that will likely prove to be far more sustainable – as well as beneficial to the industry as a whole – than their old practices. Long live the age of madtech.

1 http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/dichotomy-ad-tech-martech-work/308114/

2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoZKEv2KlU0&feature=youtu.be

3 https://chiefmartec.com/2018/05/martech-consolidation-expansion/

“We’re seeing many brands take core skills such as a web development and digital marketing in-house, and using agencies for consultancy and new thinking... So we all have to reinvent ourselves to remain in business.”


EDITORIAL

A User’s Guide to Interesting Upstarts

If anyone loves future gazing, it’s agencies. Yet few predicted even a few years ago that their competitor landscape would be so altered by the incursion of management consultancies and brands taking work in-house.

If consulting firms have become the new normal – as Accenture Interactive and IBM iX dominate the Top 100 list for another year – what new types of business might we see appearing in future to challenge agencies?

I have picked just five core groups of interesting upstarts that I think will compete with agencies over the next few years. There are many more sources of competition out there, but these five groups are already fairly established and so pose more of a scalable threat than some of the smaller entrepreneurs operating in this space.

1. Publishers/media/content creation businesses

Virtually every publisher operating right now has a creative shop as part of its portfolio. The IAB recently released its first ever directory of publisher branded content studios this year.1 While some of these businesses are focused mainly on sponsored content and advertising solutions, an increasing number are offering a sophisticated blend of context, content and distribution services.

At scale, companies like Oath (formerly Verizon), which owns AOL, TechCrunch, HuffPost and Yahoo!, among others, are combining access to audiences, context, content creation and digital marketing tech. It doesn’t take a huge leap of imagination to see that telecom giant AT&T’s estimated $2bn acquisition of AppNexus this summer allows it to occupy a space that straddles content (through its $85bn purchase of Time Warner), digital ad space and mobile data. This is not so much an agency as an all-in-one audience monetisation machine.

Ruth Mortimer is Managing Partner of Econsultancy where she oversees product development and manages the sponsorship business. Ruth formerly ran the award-winning Festival of Marketing and edited Marketing Week magazine. She is also a PPA award-winning columnist and the author of five books on marketing.

In this article, Econsultancy Managing Partner Ruth Mortimer discusses the new sources of competition challenging the future agency model.


Furthermore, it’s not just Oath and AT&T making interesting moves in this space; we are now beginning to see the emergence of niche publishers, too. Cycle Media in the US, for example, produces content related to sports and offers everything from standard sponsorship of its content right through to influencer campaigns using its communities. Meanwhile, LADbible’s branded content agency Joyride regularly produces campaigns for both its own and other social channels.

2. Communities

While communities have long been part of the digital space – Reddit, probably the granddaddy of them all, has been running since 2005 – the new community sites are sophisticated audience delivery machines offering ever more services.

The community sites are not publishers – the content and discussion that fuels them are generated by the audience rather than professional content producers – but they too seek to offer brands services that would have once been the domain of an agency.

Mumsnet has long provided a range of insight and sponsorship services to brands in the parenting space. Girlboss offers everything from custom social activity to influencer marketing and invites partners to get involved, somewhat like a community version of Refinery29. As more of these sites offer a range of services similar to those offered by publishers, without the overheads associated with scaling content production, they form interesting alternatives for reaching audiences, particularly niche ones.

3. Modern partnership brokers

While media companies and communities have access to mass audiences, another source of competition for agencies is coming from a group best described as brokers. This group comprises a diverse mix of intermediaries beginning to offer services that compete with agencies and management consultancies.

Econsultancy’s sister brand Oystercatchers fits nicely into this area. Once a pitch consultancy, it now runs large-scale consultancy and transformation projects that stray into areas that once would have been the preserve of brands such as Accenture.

Sunday Dinner is another such broker. Founder Lindsay Slaby – a former Droga5 employee – wrote an excellent post on LinkedIn after Cannes Lions this year warning agencies about their new competition.2 Her firm offers consultancy but uses the medium of dinners to bring together influential people to crack briefs in a new way.

Meanwhile, The School of Life, which began as a concept store and training school to help consumers develop emotional intelligence, has shifted to providing business services similar to what would have once been offered in workshops by agencies.

4. Workspace and workflow brands

Some of the newer entrants to the B2B space are companies that focus on workplace or workflow solutions, but they also provide services that once might have been handled by an agency.

The smartest workspace brands are a mix between office providers and private members clubs. While many started out offering physical services as a benefit of membership, they are now increasingly offering business services.

WeWork acquired community platform MeetUp at the end of 2017 and digital marketing startup Conductor earlier this year, moves that many view as a precursor to offering further community and digital services. As WeWork’s UK and Ireland Managing Director, Leni Zneimer, explained to Econsultancy: “WeWork is just one of our business lines.”3

The company has launched a coding academy, Flatiron School, which comes to the UK this year and as more people use its app to meet people, book rooms and network, it becomes an area ripe for audience monetisation.


Working spaces and communities are increasingly overlapping. In the US, The Wing provides co-working spaces for women, while in the UK, The AllBright is a working space and private members club for females. Both brands work with partner suppliers to offer services to their influential audiences.

5. Brands getting in on the act

Increasingly, businesses are offering digital, content and marketing services. The most established operator of this type is, of course, Amazon, which functions not only as a media owner offering advertising space but also has its own creative shop to help brands create ads.

Smaller brands are frequently getting in on the act, too. Glossier, a beauty brand that delivers hip cosmetics direct-to-consumer, originally developed out of a popular blog, Into The Gloss. Glossier has openly stated that its aim is to own every part of the marketing funnel, including the context and the social environment, and uses its dedicated community to help co-create its products and marketing.

It was no surprise that Glossier’s president Henry Davis spoke at this year’s Cannes Lions about themes that once would have been within agency territory.

“At the moment, YouTube or Instagram or Facebook owns the context, the environment and the format in which we talk with our own customer,” he said. “Actually, if we really believe that having customers as a core part of the company is the way to build brands of the future, you have to start to own that relationship.”

Now, if you are currently working at an agency and reading this with an outraged look on your face, I say this to you: No, these companies and brands are not agencies. They do not do what you do. But that’s the problem. You are never truly disrupted by the threat you can see on the horizon.

You need to watch out for the interesting upstart who met your largest client in the WeWork communal area or at the bijou dinner organised by a broker you have never heard of, and who suggests they could offer that something you did not even know was missing.

1 https://www.iab.com/news/content-studio-directory/

2 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cannes-future-agency-

model-right-under-our-noses-lindsey-slaby/

3 https://www.econsultancy.com/blog/70188-a-day-

in-the-life-of-uk-ireland-md-at-wework

“At the moment, YouTube or Instagram or Facebook owns the context, the environment and the format in which we talk with our own customer.”

Henry DavisPresident, Glossier


EDITORIAL

How Does AI Play a Critical Part in the Future of Agencies?

‘AI-powered’ has been a convenient way for agencies and martech vendors to supercharge their propositions, even when the intelligence of their tech may be unclear.

Computers scientists themselves regularly debate what actually defines intelligence. Wikipedia informs me that “as machines become increasingly capable, tasks considered as requiring ‘intelligence’ are often removed from the definition, a phenomenon known as the AI effect, leading to the quip, ‘AI is whatever hasn’t been done yet.’” Such nuances are never going to stop a good agency marketer plastering those two letters over every page of their website.

Most of the media coverage and opinion pieces I have read about AI in marketing take one of two angles – either a banal optimism about data science (couched in generic and non-committal language) or a discussion of which jobs are for the chop (ending with the triumphal assertion that robots will never paint like Picasso or write like Shakespeare – ignoring the fact we would laugh at any human who said they aspired to those creative heights).

This article outlines practical ways in which agencies are, and will be, using AI.

Creative

Truly creative AIs are currently the stuff of science fiction. But are they consigned there?

The answer to that would seem to be ‘yes’ if we use language generation (proxy for thought generation) as an example. Language generation is one of the most difficult nuts for AI to crack. Anyone on Twitter will know that every so often an AI’s attempt at writing a new Harry Potter chapter, for example, goes viral through its sheer ludicrousness. Neural networks are also trained to come up with ‘jokes’, but unless your sense of (anti)humour is incredibly absurd, their efforts do not make much sense.

How is AI actually being used by creative agencies?

Ben Davis is Editor of the Econsultancy blog and has written over 1,000 articles about marketing and technology topics. You can follow him on Twitter:

@herrhuld

In this article, Econsultancy Editor Ben Davis takes a practical look at AI and agencies of the future.


Well, deep learning has been used to perform the splicing together of video clips, writing of advertising storylines and composition of music. Pretty much all of the time, such AI has been experimental and used as little more than a gimmick i.e. if you did not know an AI had been used, you could probably guess (spotting an obvious creative dissonance). Plenty of human oversight, of course, was needed to create these flawed efforts. Column inches may have been won, but the creative was never intended to be placed in prime advertising real estate.

Where AI seems to have a future is in creative direction. Unsurprisingly, if you want to play to the strength of an AI, the best thing to do is to use it to spot patterns. This might mean using it to search archives of award-winning campaigns and then advise on elements to include in your own ad (this approach was used by McCann Japan in 2017).1 Or it could mean an AI trained to judge the tone of creative and predict its success with this tone. Again, the hard work lies in training such an algorithm and interrogating its decisions.

These examples are all about AI helping to reduce the odds of creative failure, to direct the creative, rather than to produce any itself. The question is whether agencies would be happier to take a punt when they have the backing of a machine? It can be very hard to put a number on exactly why ads fail – how many data sources will an AI need in order to take account of regional dynamics in our society or the current geo-political situation? How do you train an AI with enough data to properly understand nostalgia? Big PhD questions, these.

Media

Media bidding optimisation is probably the most obvious area where machine learning has been used in marketing for some time. For example, Google Ads (formerly AdWords) has Smart Bidding, with machine learning algorithms trained to help make more accurate predictions of how different bid amounts might affect conversions or conversion value.2

Similar technology is used across all biddable media. Agencies are bringing a variety of contextual data together (from weather to customer behaviour) and using their own algorithms plugged into adtech platforms to increase return on ad spend.

In fact, a recent report by ExchangeWire and IponWeb reveals that 49% of media agencies use proprietary adtech for programmatic buying, which (though it won’t all be AI-powered) at least hints at how commonplace machine learning has become within media agencies.3

Examples of media agencies championing AI include Albert and Blackwood Seven (whose entire propositions are based on AI – Albert even has its website on an .ai domain to make the point) and iProspect with its CORE algorithm.

It should be pointed out here that this adjustment of ad creative and targeting in real-time based on feedback does change the traditional relationship between media agency and creative content, between strategy and execution. This is something that Brainlabs CEO Daniel Gilbert has written about recently on the Econsultancy blog, saying “it would be extremely counter-productive to pre-determine this aspect of [creative] strategy; making it adaptive to feedback gained during execution is the way to win in the biddable era”.4

Of course, more data, along with faster and better algorithms are not a silver bullet – first movers gain an advantage, but ultimately advertisers are competing with each other for media. Then there is the bigger picture in advertising – expert targeting and bidding cannot disguise consumer apathy to much of digital advertising, or the continuing issue of brand safety (ads appearing in less-than-desirable spots).

Ultimately, you get what you pay for in media, even if you believe in people-based marketing. Although agencies do not want to be left behind with their tech, media buying is obviously a far more complicated business than simply having a great algorithm. Indeed, Blackwood Seven closed its UK office in December 2017 after only a year to concentrate on the SaaS element of the business, with CEO Carl Erik Kjærsgaard saying that the plan “was never to be a traditional media agency, but to offer advertisers direct access to advanced AI-based comms planning”.5

“Let’s not underplay the significance of machine learning optimisation for big advertisers though. If your business is in a competitive market or you are a retailer with a large product catalogue, efficiencies are a big deal.”


Let’s not underplay the significance of machine learning optimisation for big advertisers though. If your business is in a competitive market or you are a retailer with a large product catalogue, efficiencies are a big deal.

Furthermore, it should be noted that machine learning is being used in a similar way for owned media, to optimise communications, whether it be email, website content or app push notifications. New vendors and services are popping up every month. If you are a telco that sends out millions of emails, for example, such optimisation is important. Most marketers will find that their email service providers are already offering such machine-learning led personalisation.

Analytics

The power of machine learning lies in data interrogation.

AI in analytics now is chiefly related to media optimisation or content personalisation. Bidding algorithms can predict the chance of an impression converting and bid accordingly. Likewise, predictive analytics enables marketers to predict the likely lifetime value of a customer, and then message them accordingly.

However, let us consider the remit of the digital agency (and AI) more broadly.

Provided data has been collected and organised in the right way (itself no mean feat and perhaps the major limiting factor for businesses with legacy tech), the applications of predictive analytics and data mining are vast.

A McKinsey study6 identifies use cases such as predictive maintenance using IoT data or imagery, logistics optimisation (delivery routing) and image analysis in disease diagnosis. Beyond new use cases, however, the same report suggests that advances in analytics through deep learning have the potential to boost the value of traditional analytics by anything from 30% to 128%.

Aside from digital tactics, larger agencies need to ask themselves a fundamental question. If their strategic remit in some cases is straying towards rethinking business processes and reimagining business models (agencies are, after all, often involved in digital transformation projects), does their data manipulation and machine learning capability need to be beefed up?

Agencies often talk about technologists, strategists and creatives working together and offering a distinct viewpoint on a problem. Increasingly, that view may be blinkered if agencies cannot call on the right data.

As an addendum – all of this applies to internal agency processes, too. Most people in the industry have heard of Marcel, Publicis’ AI-powered platform designed to revolutionise how the agency group functions.

Marcel – which delivers personalised content, connects employees and organises briefs – is a tacit admission that agency groups need some of this machine-led disruption themselves.

I see AI as a way for agencies and clients to better see the wood for the trees. Surely, in the digital era, we are all crying out for such perspective?

1 https://futurism.com/an-ad-agency-now-has-

the-worlds-first-ai-creative-director/

2 https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7065882?hl=en-GB

3 https://www.exchangewire.com/agents-of-change-the-

rise-of-the-programmatic-media-agency/

4 https://econsultancy.com/blog/70241-the-division-between-

strategy-execution-is-meaningless-in-a-biddable-world/

5 https://mediatel.co.uk/newsline/2017/12/05/

blackwood-seven-to-close-uk-operation/

6 https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/artificial-intelligence/

notes-from-the-ai-frontier-applications-and-value-of-deep-learning 34 Top 100 Digital Agencies 2018

THE TOP 100

How the guide works

Agencies are ranked on their fee income from digital activities in the UK. For the purposes of the Top 100, fee income from digital media activities is defined as the money that agencies retain after any bought-in third-party costs, such as media, production or hosting, have been paid. Although not a perfect metric, we believe that this is a better indicator than overall turnover of what an agency’s digital expertise is worth.

Agencies supplied information via an online form. As with previous editions, we asked them for figures that came from their most recent full year’s accounts. Information provided was verified using Companies House records and with each agency.

To better enable comparison of agencies, they have been ranked by income in their category. Agencies chose which category best described the largest part of their business.

Some agencies did not submit their fee income due to policy and legislative constraints, most notably the 2002 US Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which makes senior executives of public companies personally liable for false or misleading financial information.

In addition, some of the larger agency groups have rules that prevent their agencies from disclosing financial information. In the majority of cases, agencies that could not provide all financial details requested (or failed to respond to enquiries) have not been listed in the guide. In the case of MullenLowe Profero, RAPP UK and We Are Social, last year’s figures have been used at their request due to unavailable data or changes in financial reporting structures. Furthermore, the fee income of Accenture Interactive and IBMiX has been estimated by Econsultancy based on available data.

While the utmost care is taken in compiling financial figures for this guide and its corresponding rankings, this can only be as reliable as the information supplied.

All content and editorial decisions remain Econsultancy’s own.

The Top 100 Digital Agencies Report lists the UK’s top 100 digital marketing, design and build,technical and creative agencies.


TECHNICAL CREATIVE DESIGN & BUILD FULL SERVICE & MARKETING

Rank Agency name UK fee income from digital

Year to Previous year Year founded

Owner

1 Accenture Interactive £351,424,177 08/17 £284,664,182 2009 Accenture

2 IBM iX £267,087,857 12/17 £195,930,000 1990 IBM

3 Atos Digital Services £181,000,000 12/17 £139,000,000 2011 Atos

4 Cognizant Interactive £170,000,000 12/17 N/A 2014 Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp.

5 Wunderman UK Group £167,200,000 12/17 N/A 1998 WPP plc

6 EPAM Systems £124,000,000 12/17 £104,000,000 2005 Independent

7 AmazeRealise £88,000,000 07/17 £67,819,000 1997 St Ives plc

8 BAE Systems Applied Intelligence £87,723,779 12/17 £91,069,939 2002 BAE Systems

9 Tribal Worldwide £80,618,067 12/17 £70,649,333 1996 DDB

10 Kainos £78,600,000 03/18 £64,500,000 1996 Independent

11 Merkle £71,000,000 12/17 £41,000,000 2001 Dentsu Aegis Network

12 Digitas £69,298,000 01/18 £76,462,000 2006 Publicis Groupe

13 Engine Partners UK LLP £61,085,000 12/17 £59,118,000 2005 Independent

14 RMA Consulting £45,500,000 03/18 £29,700,000 2005 NTT DATA Corporation

15 MullenLowe Profero* £40,700,000 12/16 £33,300,000 1998 MullenLowe Group

16 EY-Seren Limited £38,295,707 06/18 £36,048,035 2000 EY

17 CACI £36,642,600 06/17 £37,390,000 1999 CACI Inc.

18 VCCP Group LLP £35,300,000 12/17 £33,300,000 2002 Chime Group Holdings Limited

19 Valtech Limited £31,800,000 12/17 £25,000,000 1995 Independent

20 RAPP UK* £29,554,000 12/16 £27,393,000 1965 Omnicom

21 Jaywing £29,521,045 03/17 £26,304,000 2006 Independent

22 Forward3D £26,120,000 12/17 £21,411,000 2004 The Stagwell Group

23 Cello Signal Group Limited £25,500,000 12/17 £23,800,000 1998 Cello Health plc

24 Fetch £22,349,955 12/17 £17,862,086 2009 Dentsu Aegis Network

25 TMW Unlimited £20,400,294 03/17 £20,098,320 1987 Digital Unlimited Group Ltd (trading as the Unlimited Group)

26 Be Heard £19,200,000 12/17 £9,490,000 2015 Independent

27 AND Digital £17,831,276 12/17 £11,287,889 2013 Independent

28 The BIO Agency £14,638,115 04/18 £13,253,146 2006 Tech Mahindra

Top 100 agencies by fee income

We have ranked agencies on the income they receive from digital media activities, rather than total turnover. Fee income is money agencies retain from clients after rechargeable third-party costs, such as media, production or hosting have been paid. Agencies unable to release this information are not ranked unless the information is available from other sources, such as Companies House.





Owner

29 AnalogFolk Ltd £14,468,269 12/17 £15,819,075 2008 AnalogFolk Global Ltd

30 McCann Connected £13,423,804 12/17 £12,634,995 1995 Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc (IPG)

31 Somo £13,400,000 12/17 £11,500,000 2010 Independent

32 Mirum £13,326,000 12/17 £16,651,000 2015 WPP plc

33 We Are Social* £13,267,813 12/16* £12,243,018 2008 BlueFocus Communication Group

34 Stickyeyes Group £13,200,000 12/17 £10,800,000 1996 Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc (IPG)

35 IDHL Group £12,909,762 12/17 £10,505,989 2000 Independent

36 SYZYGY £12,890,821 12/17 £11,429,265 1995 SYZYGY AG

37 1000heads £12,567,657 12/17 £9,136,890 2000 1000headsGroup Ltd

38 Feed £12,146,567 04/18 £8,826,715 2005 Independent

39 Amido Ltd £11,805,596 03/18 £7,862,363 2010 Independent

40 Four Communications Group £11,606,591 12/17 £8,619,421 2003 Independent

41 Visualsoft Ltd £11,054,397 06/18 £8,940,495 1998 Independent

42 Inviqa UK £10,709,767 12/17 £10,941,945 2007 Independent

43 Prophecy Unlimited £10,650,000 03/18 £10,400,000 2017 The Unlimited Group

44 Reading Room £10,626,187 10/17 £9,541,679 1996 Idox Group plc

45 Maverick Advertising & Design Ltd £10,500,000 06/18 £5,850,356 2006 Independent

46 The Big Group Holdings Ltd. £10,300,000 12/17 £9,100,000 1991 Independent

47 Red Badger £9,496,484 10/17 £7,015,064 2010 Independent

48 Poke £9,441,000 12/17 £8,845,000 2001 Publicis Worldwide

49 Equator £9,402,129 10/17 £10,004,415 1999 Independent

50 Foolproof Ltd £8,885,376 03/18 £8,364,952 2002 Zensar Technologies plc

51 twentysix £8,884,000 02/18 £9,546,000 1996 MSQ Partners

52 Dept Design & Technology Ltd £8,868,000 12/17 £7,723,000 2007 Dept UK Holding Ltd

53 Rufus Leonard £8,446,964 12/17 £8,679,297 1992 Independent

54 Croud £8,394,950 03/18 £5,319,528 2011 Independent

55 KHWS Limited £8,362,503 12/17 £7,818,576 1993 Independent

56 Redweb £8,323,000 12/17 £10,269,000 1997 Independent

57 4Ps Marketing (part of Artefact) £8,266,637 12/17 £6,015,031 2008 Independent

58 Hugo & Cat Ltd £8,240,000 12/17 £8,580,000 2004 Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc (IPG)

59 Celerity (Information Services Ltd) £8,130,438 09/17 £6,995,093 2003 Independent

60 AIA Worldwide £8,069,432 12/17 £6,838,567 1986 TMP Worldwide

61 Omobono £8,016,257 12/17 £6,831,599 2001 Independent

62 Greenlight Digital £7,737,000 08/17 £7,980,000 2001 Independent

63 Search Laboratory £7,727,939 10/17 £6,841,361 2005 Independent

64 Orange Bus £7,282,000 12/17 £4,063,000 2007 Capita plc

65 Ayima £7,251,000 12/17 £8,775,000 2007 Ayima Group AB





Owner

66 TH_NK £7,244,500 10/17 £6,893,300 2004 Independent

67 Stink Studios £7,182,000 12/17 £4,953,000 2009 Independent

68 Cheil UK £7,141,959 12/17 £4,534,525 1989 Cheil Worldwide

69 Code Computerlove £7,000,000 12/17 £6,464,000 1999 MediaCom

70 Maginus Software Solutions £6,982,000 07/17 £5,995,000 2000 Independent

71 NMPi £6,842,887 12/17 £8,017,994 2004 incuBeta Group

72 Tangent £6,770,338 03/18 £6,350,600 2001 Independent

73 Edit Agency Limited £6,719,689 07/17 £6,125,622 2018 St Ives PLC

74 Vaimo UK Ltd £6,588,528 12/17 £6,379,322 2012 Vaimo AB

75 ORM £6,575,353 09/17 £5,736,511 1999 Independent

76 W12 Studios Limited £6,560,000 05/18 £5,700,000 2012 Independent

77 Nomensa £6,463,362 12/17 £5,769,543 2001 Independent

78 We Are Friday £6,431,695 12/17 £5,519,589 2009 Independent

79 Tryzens £6,416,000 03/18 £5,053,000 2004 Independent

80 Dare Digital Ltd £6,400,000 06/17 £5,700,000 2000 Inside Ideas Group

81 CDS Digital £6,293,343 12/17 £5,952,526 1994 The Baird Group

82 Great State £5,830,846 03/18 £5,754,187 1997 Independent

83 Answer Digital Limited £5,604,617 12/17 £3,688,344 1999 Independent

84 Threepipe £5,260,000 03/18 £4,100,000 2004 Independent

85 Beyond £5,186,503 01/18 £4,213,011 2010 Next 15 Communications Group plc

86 Pulse £5,130,000 12/17 £3,243,000 2013 Independent

87 Affinity £4,977,426 05/18 £4,912,033 1986 Affinity Group Holdings

88 Kagool £4,879,021 03/18 £4,252,189 1999 Independent

89 Metia Group £4,841,798 09/17 £4,504,873 1990 Metia Group Ltd

90 Click Consult £4,800,000 03/18 £4,000,000 2003 Independent

91 ThirtyThree £4,796,135 12/17 £3,947,703 2008 Capita plc

92 Leighton £4,759,000 03/18 £4,093,000 1996 Independent

93 The Octopus Group Limited £4,740,000 12/17 £5,417,000 2000 Independent

94 Abacus e-Media £4,603,321 12/17 £4,180,000 1997 Urdgrup Limited

95 Dog £4,469,125 12/17 £4,502,253 1996 Independent

96 ODD London £4,321,445 01/18 £3,110,119 2004 Next 15 Communications Group plc

97 ClearPeople £4,302,923 03/18 £3,944,332 2003 Independent

98 Fat Media £4,248,067 04/18 £3,818,106 2005 Independent

99 Your Favourite Story £4,232,153 03/18 £3,700,634 2006 Independent

100 CTI Digital £4,197,354 02/18 £3,277,986 2003 Paperhat

* Denotes where the same fee income has been published as in the Top 100 2017 report due to agency group policy changes meaning

these agencies were unable to disclose their most recent fee income figures or the information was unavailable



Top full service and marketing agencies



Owner

1 Accenture Interactive £351,424,177 08/17 £284,664,182 2009 Accenture

2 IBM iX £267,087,857 12/17 £195,930,000 1990 IBM

4 Cognizant Interactive £170,000,000 12/17 N/A 2014 Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp.

5 Wunderman UK Group £167,200,000 12/17 N/A 1998 WPP plc

9 Tribal Worldwide £80,618,067 12/17 £70,649,333 1996 DDB

11 Merkle £71,000,000 12/17 £41,000,000 2001 Dentsu Aegis Network

12 Digitas £69,298,000 01/18 £76,462,000 2006 Publicis Groupe

13 Engine Partners UK LLP £61,085,000 12/17 £59,118,000 2005 Independent

18 VCCP Group LLP £35,300,000 12/17 £33,300,000 2002 Chime Group Holdings Limited

19 Valtech Limited £31,800,000 12/17 £25,000,000 1995 Independent

20 RAPP UK* £29,554,000 12/16 £27,393,000 1965 Omnicom

21 Jaywing £29,521,045 03/17 £26,304,000 2006 Independent

22 Forward3D £26,120,000 12/17 £21,411,000 2004 The Stagwell Group

23 Cello Signal Group Limited £25,500,000 12/17 £23,800,000 1998 Cello Health plc

25 TMW Unlimited £20,400,294 03/17 £20,098,320 1987 Digital Unlimited Group Ltd (trading as the Unlimited Group)

26 Be Heard £19,200,000 12/17 £9,490,000 2015 Independent

30 McCann Connected £13,423,804 12/17 £12,634,995 1995 Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc (IPG)

32 Mirum £13,326,000 12/17 £16,651,000 2015 WPP plc

33 We Are Social* £13,267,813 12/16 £12,243,018 2008 BlueFocus Communication Group

34 Stickyeyes Group £13,200,000 12/17 £10,800,000 1996 Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc (IPG)

35 IDHL Group £12,909,762 12/17 £10,505,989 2000 Independent

36 SYZYGY £12,890,821 12/17 £11,429,265 1995 SYZYGY AG

37 1000heads £12,567,657 12/17 £9,136,890 2000 1000headsGroup Ltd

38 Feed £12,146,567 04/18 £8,826,715 2005 Independent

40 Four Communications Group £11,606,591 12/17 £8,619,421 2003 Independent








Owner

45 Maverick Advertising & Design Ltd £10,500,000 06/18 £5,850,356 2006 Independent

46 The Big Group Holdings Ltd. £10,300,000 12/17 £9,100,000 1991 Independent

51 twentysix £8,884,000 02/18 £9,546,000 1996 MSQ Partners

53 Rufus Leonard £8,446,964 12/17 £8,679,297 1992 Independent

54 Croud £8,394,950 03/18 £5,319,528 2011 Independent

55 KHWS Limited £8,362,503 12/17 £7,818,576 1993 Independent

57 4Ps Marketing (part of Artefact) £8,266,637 12/17 £6,015,031 2008 Independent

58 Hugo & Cat Ltd £8,240,000 12/17 £8,580,000 2004 Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc (IPG)

60 AIA Worldwide £8,069,432 12/17 £6,838,567 1986 TMP Worldwide

62 Greenlight Digital £7,737,000 08/17 £7,980,000 2001 Independent

63 Search Laboratory £7,727,939 10/17 £6,841,361 2005 Independent

65 Ayima £7,251,000 12/17 £8,775,000 2007 Ayima Group AB

66 TH_NK £7,244,500 10/17 £6,893,300 2004 Independent

67 Stink Studios £7,182,000 12/17 £4,953,000 2009 Independent

68 Cheil UK £7,141,959 12/17 £4,534,525 1989 Cheil Worldwide

73 Edit Agency Limited £6,719,689 07/17 £6,125,622 2018 St. Ives PLC

80 Dare Digital Ltd £6,400,000 06/17 £5,700,000 2000 Inside Ideas Group

82 Great State £5,830,846 03/18 £5,754,187 1997 Independent

84 Threepipe £5,260,000 03/18 £4,100,000 2004 Independent

86 Pulse £5,130,000 12/17 £3,243,000 2013 Independent

88 Kagool £4,879,021 03/18 £4,252,189 1999 Independent

89 Metia Group £4,841,798 09/17 £4,504,873 1990 Metia Group Ltd

90 Click Consult £4,800,000 03/18 £4,000,000 2003 Independent

91 ThirtyThree £4,796,135 12/17 £3,947,703 2008 Capita plc

93 The Octopus Group Limited £4,740,000 12/17 £5,417,000 2000 Independent

96 ODD London £4,321,445 01/18 £3,110,119 2004 Next 15 Communications Group plc

99 Your Favourite Story £4,232,153 03/18 £3,700,634 2006 Independent

100 CTI Digital £4,197,354 02/18 £3,277,986 2003 Paperhat



Top design and build agencies



Owner

7 AmazeRealise £88,000,000 07/17 £67,819,000 1997 St Ives PLC

8 BAE Systems Applied Intelligence £87,723,779 12/17 £91,069,939 2002 BAE Systems

10 Kainos £78,600,000 03/18 £64,500,000 1996 Independent

14 RMA Consulting £45,500,000 03/18 £29,700,000 2005 NTT DATA Corporation

15 MullenLowe Profero* £40,700,000 12/16 £33,300,000 1998 MullenLowe Group

16 EY-Seren Limited £38,295,707 06/18 £36,048,035 2000 EY

31 Somo £13,400,000 12/17 £11,500,000 2010 Independent

47 Red Badger £9,496,484 10/17 £7,015,064 2010 Independent

49 Equator £9,402,129 10/17 £10,004,415 1999 Independent

50 Foolproof Ltd £8,885,376 03/18 £8,364,952 2002 Zensar Technologies plc

52 Dept Design & Technology Ltd £8,868,000 12/17 £7,723,000 2007 Dept UK Holding Ltd

56 Redweb £8,323,000 12/17 £10,269,000 1997 Independent

69 Code Computerlove £7,000,000 12/17 £6,464,000 1999 MediaCom

70 Maginus Software Solutions £6,982,000 07/17 £5,995,000 2000 Independent

72 Tangent £6,770,338 03/18 £6,350,600 2001 Independent

74 Vaimo UK Ltd £6,588,528 12/17 £6,379,322 2012 Vaimo AB

75 ORM £6,575,353 09/17 £5,736,511 1999 Independent

77 Nomensa £6,463,362 12/17 £5,769,543 2001 Independent

78 We Are Friday £6,431,695 12/17 £5,519,589 2009 Independent

79 Tryzens £6,416,000 03/18 £5,053,000 2004 Independent

85 Beyond £5,186,503 01/18 £4,213,011 2010 Next 15 Communications Group plc

87 Affinity £4,977,426 05/18 £4,912,033 1986 Affinity Group Holdings

95 Dog £4,469,125 12/17 £4,502,253 1996 Independent

97 ClearPeople £4,302,923 03/18 £3,944,332 2003 Independent

98 Fat Media £4,248,067 04/18 £3,818,106 2005 Independent






Top creative agencies

Top technical agencies



Owner

28 The BIO Agency £14,638,115 04/18 £13,253,146 2006 Tech Mahindra

29 AnalogFolk Ltd £14,468,269 12/17 £15,819,075 2008 AnalogFolk Global Ltd

48 Poke £9,441,000 12/17 £8,845,000 2001 Publicis Worldwide

61 Omobono £8,016,257 12/17 £6,831,599 2001 Independent

76 W12 Studios Limited £6,560,000 05/18 £5,700,000 2012 Independent

94 Abacus e-Media £4,603,321 12/17 £4,180,000 1997 Urdgrup Limited



Owner

3 Atos Digital Services £181,000,000 12/17 £139,000,000 2011 Atos

6 EPAM Systems £124,000,000 12/17 £104,000,000 2005 Independent

17 CACI £36,642,600 06/17 £37,390,000 1999 CACI Inc

27 AND Digital £17,831,276 12/17 £11,287,889 2013 Independent

39 Amido Ltd £11,805,596 03/18 £7,862,363 2010 Independent

42 Inviqa UK £10,709,767 12/17 £10,941,945 2007 Independent

59 Celerity (Information Services Ltd) £8,130,438 09/17 £6,995,093 2003 Independent

64 Orange Bus £7,282,000 12/17 £4,063,000 2007 Capita plc

81 CDS Digital £6,293,343 12/17 £5,952,526 1994 The Baird Group

83 Answer Digital Limited £5,604,617 12/17 £3,688,344 1999 Independent

92 Leighton £4,759,000 03/18 £4,093,000 1996 Independent



Top regional agencies

The following table presents a breakdown of Top 100 agencies located in regions outside of London.

1

92

3

4

5

8

7

6

1. Scotland

AmazeRealise

Dog

Equator

6. Wales

Kagool

3. North East

Orange Bus

Leighton

Visualsoft Ltd

8. South East

Celerity (Information Services Ltd)

9. Northern Ireland

Kainos

5. East England

Affinity

Omobono

2. North West

Click Consult

Code Computerlove

CTI Digital

Dept Design & Technology Ltd

Fat Media

Maginus Software Solutions

McCann Connected

7. South West

Edit Agency Limited

Great State

Nomensa

Prophecy Unlimited

Redweb

4. Yorkshire and Humber

Answer Digital Limited

CDS Digital

IDHL Group

Jaywing

Search Laboratory

Stickyeyes Group

twentysix


Founded in 1977, R/GA has been a pioneer at the intersection of technology, design and marketing, with work spanning web, mobile, social, retail, product innovation, brand development and business consulting for the connected age. The agency has more than 2,000 employees globally, with offices across the United States, Europe, South America and Asia-Pacific, and is part of The Interpublic Group of Companies.

Website: rga.com

Peter Veash founded The Bio Agency in 2006 after a previous career at Omnicom Group. With regular appearances on the BBC and CNN as well as a role in advising the UK Government, Peter’s rising reputation as a digital expert has seen his business enjoy rapid growth in recent years.

Peter Veash Founder and CEO, The BIO Agency

Steven Bartlett Founder and CEO, Social Chain

ustwo is a global digital product studio, which launches products, services and companies that make a meaningful impact on the world. The agency’s team combines strategic, conceptual and creative to develop interactive tools for modern media platforms, from smart television through to mobile devices. Since its foundation in 2004, it has partnered with some of the world’s leading brands and has grown to four studios around the world in New York, Malmö, London and Sydney.

Website: ustwo.com

In the last few years, Steven Bartlett has become an award-winning entrepreneur, speaking and investor, and now leads Social Chain, a company of more than 150 people who are quickly disrupting the ever changing social sphere.

Top 100 entrants were asked to nominate the most respected agencies and influential people in the industry under four specific categories. The information shown here represents the agencies and people who received the most nominations.

Most respected agencies and influential industry professionals

Most respected agency

Most influential person

One to watch

Rising star


MOST INFLUENTIAL

An Interview with Peter Veash, Founder and CEO of The BIO Agency

Peter Veash has been voted the ‘most influential’ figure by his peers in this year’s Top 100. Econsultancy Editor Ben Davis caught up with him to find out more about his work.

Perhaps fittingly, in a year when the Top 100 report tackles such disparate and complex subjects as AI, psychology and existentialism (what is an agency to be?), Veash speaks with directness and clarity about his business. The fact that he answered my questions for this interview whilst driving a car and placating a canine passenger was impressive, too.

Beyond user-centric design

I asked Veash what distinguishes BIO’s approach. His reply was that BIO makes “a prediction before the work goes live as to how it’s going to change revenues and NPS, and I think that puts us in a relatively unique place in the industry.”

To put this into context, BIO is a customer experience-led digital transformation agency, so it does a wide variety of work but a large part is user-centred design of digital experiences. As with many specialisms, there can be an element of dogmatism to user-centred design, something that clients have to some extent embraced, too (how many times have we heard marketers talk about “putting customers at the heart of what we do”?). Veash explains how this user-centricity is not enough on its own.

“We’ve changed our methodology,” he says. “The long version is we believe there’s a big industry issue that everyone is very user-centric, which is the correct way to be, but just meeting user needs alone doesn’t necessarily mean digital transformation is going to impact digital KPIs. Nobody is addressing that in the industry, globally.

“We’ve taken the last year to work out how we stitch together the business case, all the way through, to make sure before we do any work and it goes live, we have a view on how it’s going to shift NPS and revenue. It’s more accountable.”

Veash went as far as to describe agencies as “an unaccountable world.”

As for how exactly BIO makes these predictions, its founder talks of analysing customer journeys using “a central platform that can see what’s going on in real time, [allowing us to] start to model what we’re going to do and its impact.”

It makes sense that the agency pushes this accountability, given that transformation projects fail more often than not. Veash cites a McKinsey study from 2015, which found that three quarters of business transformation programmes do not achieve their stated goals.


Defining the digital agency

In the current landscape where digital agencies face unprecedented competition from consultancies and marketers are increasingly in-housing some digital disciplines, I asked Veash how BIO’s way of working stacks up against the competition. His take was a simple one.

“Strategy consultancies would typically be good at business casing and operational strategy, but they’re less good at actually bringing that to life. Then design consultancies and experience consultancies are very good at creating something that provides a great customer experience but they don’t often tie back to business metrics. Then you’ve got technology agencies that can bring in the tech but they don’t tie back to the customer experience.

“What we believe we’re doing for the first time is tying together strategy with experience design and technology.”

As someone who does not have a background in agency land, this is compelling in its simplicity. Furthermore, BIO’s two-prong proposition detailed on its website makes a lot of sense – digital innovation (creating products, services, experiences) and digital transformation (looking at the whole business, from operations to tech to culture).

Veash adds that length of engagement with clients is increasing and that alongside a customer experience (CX) team, BIO has an employee experience (EX) team.

“We’re having to make changes internally to make sure the project is realised in the way it should be. We’ve had a couple of examples where we are hired not only to deliver a digital product and transformation, but also to agitate the organisation so it works in a different way.

“…Sometimes you need a bit of a sledgehammer to force change. As a result, we have hired EX specialists.”

New specialisms

I asked Veash about BIO’s current challenges, particularly about other new roles the agency has recruited for. One new specialism he stressed was psychology.

“We’ve brought a psychological approach into the business, because we’re changing the way we understand customers from doing personas to really understanding psychological profiling. That’s a shift for us.

“When we think of customer experience, psychologists don’t exist in that field today, so we’re learning from them in all kinds of different sectors, such as health. They’ve done seven years of training and we want to open up this world for them for the first time.”

Veash adds that drawing on psychology is new for the industry and “not typically the way people operate today in our sector.”

Attraction and retention

Discussing agency culture with Veash, he highlighted two main issues. Firstly, “a change in the way people want to work.”

“People are less concerned about full time, and more and more people are choosing freelance work for flexibility. As a business, you have to adjust to that and understand it.”

Veash says he is open-minded about the workforce:

“We’ve changed the way we offer holidays, the way we give breaks in careers, to make it the right place to work. A place people want to come to.”

Part of attracting and retaining staff is BIO’s offer of a “significant learning and development budget,” which Veash says is “not so common in our industry.”

He adds, “We are 100% focused on training our teams. When I was growing up working in the industry, it was more about learning on the job, but consultancies, for example, don’t do that.”

This is perhaps a revealing comment. Speaking to Veash, I got the impression of more structure and processes in place at BIO – a maturing of their model, which balances product expertise and ideas with business acumen, leading to greater cultural embedding with clients. Digital agencies are all dealing with these changes in the market as businesses realise digital is less about the next best tech and more about finding the right strategic partner.

“What we believe we’re doing for the first time is tying together strategy with experience design and technology.”

Peter VeashFounder and CEO, The BIO Agency


The Top 100 agency profiles



Accenture Interactive is a new breed of agency. It has been custom designed from the ground up to help its clients create and deliver the best experiences on the planet. It describes itself as part creative agency, part business consultancy and part technology powerhouse, a formula that is driving its growth.

The agency helps the world’s leading brands transform their experience across the entire customer journey at speed and at scale. Through its connected offerings in design, marketing, content and commerce, it creates new ways to win in today’s experience-led economy.

It has never been harder, or more exciting to be a CMO, the agency says, before adding that there is a well-documented gap between brand promise and consumer expectation – Accenture Interactive cares about helping CMOs close this gap, as well as creating new ways to win through relevant and human experiences.

In the last 12 months, Accenture Interactive has continued to expand its client value proposition – creative innovation – by acquiring Rothco and Karmarama and opening Interactive Studios in London and Dublin. It has also extended capabilities and service offerings with the launch of programmatic services and interactive operations and acquired new talent with joiners such as Nikki Mendonça and Amir Malik.

Atos Digital Services provides full-scale transformation services including digital, customer experience strategy, application transformation and cloud infrastructure. Its other capabilities include automation and AI, IoT, big data and analytics, SAP Hana, infrastructure and hosting, cyber security, digital payments and digital workplace solutions. These are delivered either as digital project services or as part of broader business transformation.

Atos is an end-to-end full scale digital transformation partner with the depth, breadth and scale to enable clients with their business transformation journey. The agency helps drive efficiencies and deliver business growth by bringing together its own services with those of partners, start-ups, niche players and global delivery.

“Atos cares about delivering excellent experiences for our customer’s customer via innovation and technology – simplifying transformation through effective change management,” it says. The agency partners with clients, both in their working styles and by commercially aligning their joint success. “We make digital mainstream, allowing clients to focus on business rather than technology,” the agency adds.

In the last 12 months, Atos has struck up a partnership with Google to bring clients solutions encompassing hybrid cloud, data analytics and machine learning, digital workplace and three global AI Labs. New large deals include strategic digital partnerships with Scottish Water and Northern Ireland Electricity. Atos implemented the first full-scale Salesforce Einstein CRM in financial services with Ulster Bank.

IBM iX uses design techniques to solve complex business challenges. It focuses on the user to help clients deliver exceptional digital experiences, leveraging the world’s best technology.

The agency partners with ambitious leaders to imagine the businesses of the future, then builds them, focusing on design transformations to put businesses at the forefront of the digital age. Combining analytics with design and development, IBM iX aims to create authentic interactions for business impact.

“Human beings are at the heart of everything that we design and build,” the agency says. “We make real stuff and [don’t just draw] pretty pictures; [we create] real stuff that ends up in the hands of real people. Everything we do is based on some sort of insight from the people we are designing for.”

In the last 12 months, IBM iX has won the DADI Award for Best Use of AI/Machine Learning and was named as Salesforce’s number 1 partner. Its personnel have also been recognised for their work: Debbie Vavangas won the FDM everywoman in Technology Leader of the Year, Alison Clark was named as one of the BIMA 100 and Lucy Marsden was highly commended in the Young Consultant of the Year.

Fee income: £351,424,177 (<08/17)

Year founded: 2009

Owner: Accenture

UK head: Joy Bhattacharya, Managing Director

Contact: Joy Bhattacharya, Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 791 700 0000

Website: accenture.com/gb-en/interactive-index

Fee income: £181,000,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2011

Owner: Atos

UK head: Toby Goldblatt, SVP Atos Digital Services

Contact: Jillian Moore, Head of Digital UK and Ireland, [email protected], +44 (0) 800 783 3040

Business split: 10% CRM, 2% Creative, 11% Ecommerce, 22% Managed Services, 15% Marketing, 1% Social, 24% Technical Development, 8% User Experience, 7% Software

Website: atos.net

Fee income: £267,087,857 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1990

Owner: IBM

UK head: Debbie Vavangas, IBM iX Leader, UK and Ireland

Contact: Faye Weedon, IBM iX Strategy and Market Development Lead, [email protected], +44 (0) 734 150 4516

Website: ibm.com/services/ibmix/

Accenture Interactive IBM iX

Atos Digital Services

1 2

3



Cognizant Interactive

Cognizant Interactive is a digital experience agency with global scale. It helps CMOs and CIOs deliver end-to-end digital enterprise transformation, helping to envision and operate tomorrow’s products and services. Its capabilities include insight, innovation, experience design, creative and content, alongside deep expertise in AI and data, operations, technology and engineering.

As customer experience becomes the key differentiator between brands, Cognizant focuses on delivering world-class experiences. Its approach is industry-led, with a bias to applied innovation – platform-enabled, AI-driven and inspired by insight. The agency offers the creative agility of an agency, with the scale and end-to-end capability of a global transformation partner.

“We are dedicated to designing and delivering world-class experiences for our clients,” says Cognizant. “Companies today face unprecedented disruption – from meeting ever-increasing consumer expectations to defending core business against digitally native competitors. We help our clients rethink how value is created for customers by taking a human-centric view to digital transformation.”

As a digital experience agency with global scale, Cognizant Interactive offers both creative agility and end-to-end transformation capability of a global transformation partner. With strengths that range from foresight services to experience design, Cognizant Interactive runs some of the largest digital support services of its kind.

Through an international network of digital experts across 52 offices, Cognizant Interactive is a pioneer in bringing a human-centred approach to end-to-end experience transformation.

Whether boosting farm crop yields with peer-to-peer mobile data share, using blockchain to enhance availability for a global sportswear brand, improving the air traveller’s experience via facial recognition, or radically reducing

content production costs for leading pharmaceuticals, Cognizant Interactive applies insight, design, and technology expertise to imagine and build industry-specific solutions that help businesses and organizations compete in the digital era and drive growth.

In the last year, Cognizant placed as the #3 Digital Agency Network globally in Ad Age’s Agency Report 2018. It acquired digital agency Zone, which won the Marketing Society’s Best New Brand for its work on Boxt, and Netcentric, which was named Adobe Experience Cloud Partner of the Year 2018 EMEA. Cognizant also became the FA’s Digital Transformation Partner.

Fee income: £170,000,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2014

Owner: Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp.

UK head: Vivek Daga, Country Manager, UK&I

Contact: George Porteous, Head of Digital Business, UK&I, [email protected], +44 (0) 785 010 9267

Website: cognizant.com/Interactive

4

Wunderman UK Group EPAM Systems

Wunderman is a modern digital agency – powered by data, creativity, and technology – that is helping many of the world’s most demanding clients transform their marketing capabilities for the future.

The agency brings together specialisation and scale in a broad range of service offerings – from communications and customer experience to data and analytics, marketing, commerce, advertising technology and business transformation – in an integrated offering.

Wunderman cares most deeply about three things: 1) driving business growth for its clients; 2) making world-class work that works; and 3) compiling the most talented and diverse teams in the market and giving them the freedom to do the best work of their lives.

Wunderman won Campaign’s Customer Engagement Agency of the Year 2017 and its holding company WPP won Adobe’s Experience Partner of the Year. In the last 12 months, it consolidated its UK portfolio (Acceleration, Burrows, Cognifide, Fusepump, Salmon, POSSIBLE and Wunderman) into one operating unit, Wunderman UK Group, becoming one of the largest full-service digital agencies. It also launched Future Ready research into digital transformation.

EPAM helps its global clients stay competitive by providing complete services for digital transformation. As a Digital Orchestrator, EPAM combines its strong engineering heritage with strategy, consulting and design capabilities to deliver solutions that turn complex business challenges into real business opportunities.

The company calls itself the Developers’ Developers because it started, in 1993, by developing software engineering solutions for software and hi-tech clients. Since then, EPAM has expanded to 26,000 people in more than 25 countries working with customers across industries. EPAM is a truly global partner with deep expertise in local markets.

EPAM is passionate about technology and helping its customers stay competitive. EPAM Garage is a space for teams to experiment and come up with ideas for clients. The agency invests in developing the brightest minds in tech, from employee training to its eKids programme, which leverages the company’s expertise to teach coding to kids.

In 2018, EPAM acquired Continuum Innovation, a design firm, to expand its innovation, design and physical product development capabilities. Additionally, EPAM recently launched its first product InfoNgen™, an actionable insight engine that leverages machine learning to deliver customised content and sentiment analysis to help clients make better decisions, faster.

Fee income: £167,200,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1998

Owner: WPP Plc

UK head: Stephan Pretorius, Wunderman UK Group CEO

Contact: Rachel O’Rourke, Senior Marketing Manager, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 611 6912

Business split: 8% CRM, 8% Creative, 36% Ecommerce, 20% Marketing, 2% Social, 15% Technical Development, 11% User Experience

Website: wunderman.com

Fee income: £124,000,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2005

Owner: Independent

UK head: Jason Harman, Co-Head Global Business, SVP

Contact: Marta Vorosvaczki, Marketing Specialist, [email protected], +36 1 327 7400 x 56970

Business split: 5% CRM, 10% Creative, 30% Ecommerce, 5% Managed Services, 5% Marketing, 35% Technical Development, 10% User Experience

Website: epam.com

5 6



AmazeRealise’s expertise lies in combining intelligent insights, creativity and technology to deliver market-leading digital experiences. The agency builds strategies around its clients, listening to their needs and delivering results. AmazeRealise’s capabilities span from driving first-class customer experience and digital transformation to lean product design, across multiple sectors, for some of the world’s leading brands.

The agency designs and builds complex digital solutions with the attitude of people first, technology second. Although technology is at its core, it understands the human impact of the solutions it designs enables it to put a unique stamp on the end results it provides for its clients.

“AmazeRealise cares about touching people lives and making positive change,” the agency says. “Nurturing talent and working with clients willing to make a difference in the world is a great combination. Above all, [we are] demonstrating to clients how important they are by continually delivering work that creates value and delivers results.”

In March 2018, two agencies came together to form AmazeRealise. Following the appointment of Fiona Proudler as CEO, it has made some significant key hires, including Rob Steeles as Group Executive Creative Director joining from AMV BBDO and Richard Neish, former MD of Dare.

Tribal describes itself as the Total Experience® agency, connecting brands with technologies that solve real life problems. Formed of six expert practices, each with its own specialist skillset and dedicated discipline and commercial lead, Tribal offers deep expertise across Business Consultancy, Data Science, Customer Experience, Tech Engineering, Creative and Innovation.

Tribal’s creative heritage stretches back to the pioneers of modern advertising, connecting the agency to one of the world’s largest creative networks. Since the beginning, it was shaped by a culture of constant progress.

The agency cares deeply about making its clients’ brands uniquely, potently and relevantly manifest across the entirety of customer experience, as well as identifying, understanding and proving the commercial contribution its work makes to its clients’ businesses. It is a diverse community, full of differences and smart ideas that come together in a passionate, innovative and thoughtful agency, it says.

The agency has launched its new proposition as the Total Experience® Agency; restructuring around six expert practices, making it easier for clients to buy the specialists they need.

Kainos delivers high quality, cost-effective, and user-centred services at scale. Working with UK government departments and agencies, it helps change the way citizens engage with government. In the private sector it helps organisations deliver digital products and services that realise their strategic goals.

Kainos aims to change the way organisations think about digital. The agency works collaboratively with customers to deliver truly transformative solutions. With a user-first approach, its solutions are secure, accessible, and cost-effective. Kainos empowers clients to become more self-sufficient through up-skilling, training and knowledge transfer.

“We’re driven by one clear vision: to enable outstanding people to create digital solutions that have a positive impact on people’s lives,” Kainos says. “Our people bring creativity, co-operation, honesty, determination and respectfulness to work every day to deliver for our customers.”

In the last 12 months, the agency won the Microsoft Country Partner of the Year Award for the UK. The company was also honoured among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology.

BAE Systems is a design and build agency delivering human-centred engineering. It has expertise in user research, user experience design, visual design and full stack development. The agency advises organisations on becoming more human centric in their digital transformation.

The agency aims to be the leading design and build solution provider for highly secure and highly usable services. It is an information intelligence company that enhances and protects its clients’ online capabilities. BAE Systems focuses on ensuring the security and robustness of digital infrastructure, while providing frictionless user experience.

BAE Systems cares about protecting users of online services, it says, adding that it helps organisations become more human-centred and address their critical design and build challenges, in which the technology can be very complex. “By caring about the user, we help bring focus and better services,” the company adds.

In the past 12 months, BAE Systems has brought together its products and services teams into a single organisation to create more integrated online services for its clients. This includes the roll out of an Atomic Design system to ensure the agency’s services are more efficient and more consistent for the end user.

Fee income: £88,000,000 (<07/17)

Year founded: 1997

Owner: St Ives PLC

UK head: Fiona Proudler, CEO

Contact: Michael Lynch, Sales and Marketing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 131 476 7435

Business split: 15% Creative, 5% Ecommerce, 21% Managed Services, 12% Marketing, 2% SEO, 1% Social, 23% Technical Development, 21% User Experience

Website: amazerealise.com

Fee income: £80,618,067 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1996

Owner: DDB

UK head: Kelly-Ann Maxwell, Chief Operations Officer

Contact: Victoria Phan, Business Development Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 779 982 2033

Business split: 25% Creative, 10% Ecommerce, 10% Marketing, 10% Social, 30% Technical Development, 15% User Experience

Website: tribalworldwide.co.uk

Fee income: £78,600,000 (<03/18)

Year founded: 1996

Owner: Independent

UK head: Russell Sloan, Director Digital Services

Contact: Nikos Karaoulanis, Head of Experience Design, [email protected], +44 (0) 771 749 8648

Business split: 10% Managed Services, 60% Technical Development, 30% User Experience

Website: kainos.com

Fee income: £87,723,779 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2002

Owner: BAE Systems

UK head: Julian Cracknell, Managing Director

Contact: Kevin Yuen, Head of Practice, Creative and Digital, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 812 4471

Business split: 10% Creative, 75% Technical Development, 15% User Experience

Website: baesystems.com/digital

AmazeRealise BAE Systems Applied Intelligence

Tribal Worldwide Kainos

7 8

9 10



Merkle is a data-driven, technology-enabled performance marketing agency specialising in the creation and delivery of unique, personalised customer experiences that drive performance across all platforms and devices and support clients worldwide in their transformation to customer-centric business strategies.

Merkle’s heritage in data, technology and analytics is the foundation on which its people-based marketing strategies and understanding of consumer insights is built. This, combined with its expertise in performance media, can offer clients the content-driven, contextual and compelling customer experiences that drive business growth and company transformation.

Through identity and data management, Merkle helps clients understand the most about target audiences. In a world of proxies, Merkle uses a combination of art and science to help clients identify real people in order to better target and more effectively market their products and services.

In the last 12 months, the agency received recognition as a Global Leader from independent research firm Forrester. Merkle was also named Performance Agency of the Year at The Drum Awards, against stiff competition. Its ever-increasing client list has resulted in YOY growth (turnover) of 144%.

Engine is made of 13 specialist agencies (covering all marketing disciplines) under one roof, who work together to provide transformational business outcomes for the company’s clients. Engine was born in the digital age so digital is in its DNA, making up 60% of its business.

For over a decade Engine has been operating a different model to the big groups – it is focused on collaboration rather than competition between specialist agencies. Its goal is to be the best in the world at combining creativity, technology and data.

“Fostering a collaborative and entrepreneurial culture is of paramount importance to Engine,” the agency says. Engine runs a range of internal initiatives to bring staff together and encourage cross-discipline thinking. Its office is designed with collaboration in mind, allowing staff from multiple businesses to come together in bespoke teams, working on integrated briefs.

In the past 12 months, Engine has won 61 new accounts, 54 awards for digital campaigns and has opened new offices in Germany to service its biggest digital account E.ON.

RMA specialises in designing simple, efficient and elegant user experiences for complex tools and rich content. It embraces user-centred design and iterative design as a principle and has deep expertise in Lean and Agile methodologies that ensure successful transition from concept to finished product.

The agency’s experience in user-centred design and quality of its people means clients engage with RMA for multiple years. As a small company, it can be agile and innovative. As part of NTT DATA, it can offer additional services and stability, as well as an R&D annual investment worth $11.8bn.

RMA loves to work on large-scale, complex, digital requirements and prides itself on delivering functional tools with intuitive user experiences. “We are willing to challenge clients and the status quo in pursuit of the best imaginable digital experience for all users, whether they are employees, clients or consumers,” it says.

The agency has won several new awards for UBS Neo. It has also been selected as digital strategy partner for HSBC.

Digitas blends creativity, data and technology to create better experiences for customers and brands.

The agency has specialists across digital media, content, platform design and build and CRM, underpinned by a horizontal data and mobile expertise. This means it can help its clients better connect their marketing activities and create better experiences for their customers.

Digitas says it cares deeply about the customer experience. “We believe the brands that win are those designed around the customer rather than the business, leveraging every channel and touchpoint to create a connected experience,” it says.

In the last year, Digitas became part of the Publicis Media family, rebranded to Digitas and welcomed a new CEO, Dani Bassil.

Fee income: £71,000,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2001

Owner: Dentsu Aegis Network

UK head: Brett Isenberg, Chief Financial Officer

Contact: Jane Muirhead, Associate Director, Marketing, [email protected], +44 (0) 778 922 5278

Business split: 20% CRM, 6% Creative, 5% Ecommerce, 17% Managed Services, 13% Marketing, 16% Media Planning, 5% SEO, 3% Social, 8% Technical Development, 6% User Experience, 1% Software

Website: merkleemea.com

Fee income: £61,085,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2005

Owner: Independent

UK head: Paul Johnson, Operations Director

Contact: Richard Dutton, CMO, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 128 8007

Business split: 3% CRM, 24% Creative, 4% Ecommerce, 1% Managed Services, 48% Marketing, 4% Media Planning, 6% Social, 6% Technical Development, 4% User Experience

Website: enginegroup.com/

Fee income: £45,500,000 (<03/18)

Year founded: 2005

Owner: NTT DATA Corporation

UK head: Peter Lelliott, Managing Director

Contact: Maya Schulz, Head of Client Services & Client Partner, [email protected], +44 (0) 791 765 4800

Business split: 15% Creative, 15% Ecommerce, 15% Technical Development, 55% User Experience

Website: rma-consulting.com

Fee income: £69,298,000 (<01/18)

Year founded: 2006

Owner: Publicis Groupe

UK head: Danielle Bassil, UK Chief Executive Officer

Contact: Matt Steward, Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 063 6465

Business split: 5% CRM, 15% Creative, 13% Ecommerce, 15% Managed Services, 35% Marketing, 7% Media Planning, 3% SEO, 1% Social, 5% Technical Development, 1% User Experience

Website: digitas.com

Merkle Digitas

Engine Partners UK LLP RMA Consulting

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MullenLowe Profero digitally transforms businesses by transforming their customer experiences, in what it calls experience-led transformation.

The agency has 15 offices globally, more than 700 employees and a world-class off-shore development hub in Chengdu, China. It delivers experience-led transformation through a deep understanding of the customer journey, integrating fully with MullenLowe Group’s specialisms in CRM, Media, PR and traditional marketing communications. Everything is under one roof and one P&L.

“We live in a world where more than ever a brand is defined by its customer experience and service design. We strive to create experiences that get our clients an unfair share of attention by delivering ideas and solutions at critical points of the customer journey which are both emotional and functional,” the agency says.

In the past 12 months, MullenLowe Profero has won one of its biggest pure play digital transformation projects, for the Royal Mail. The agency says that the delivery industry is going through tumultuous change and ensuring to keep Royal Mail at the forefront will be its focus going forward.

CACI uses data and technology to create amazing customer experiences. It plans business change, shapes customer journeys, manages acquisition budgets and delivers powerful customer engagement programmes, across all channels. This is underpinned by its analysis and insight, market-leading data and deep expertise in technology implementation.

CACI’s core purpose is to help its clients drive value by doing amazing things with data. Everything it does is based on rich customer and market insight which it uses to deliver effective customer acquisition, communication and engagement programmes.

The agency says it cares about building long-term client partnerships by making sure it delivers value, continues to innovate and always stays true to its core value of always doing the right thing.

CACI has fully integrated three strategic acquisitions in the past year, which have strengthened its capabilities in digital consulting, technology implementation and data provision. It was also delighted to be awarded a major contract to build the digital platform on which the Scottish Census will be supported in 2021.

VCCP is a full-service agency with brilliant strategy and creative at its heart. Its integrated teams have extensive digital expertise in strategy, service design, experience design, data science, data management, technical development, digital advertising, CRM, social media marketing, content marketing and content production.

VCCP is the challenger agency for challenger brands. It creates work that populates culture and believes in the power of integration, with a mantra of: “It only works if it all works.” Established in 2002 as an antidote to established agencies, VCCP is agile and lean, honest and friendly.

“As a challenger agency, we love nothing better than taking on the status quo and delivering work that truly differentiates our clients’ brands,” the agency says. “At our core, we believe in putting the customer first so that we can design experiences and communications that ultimately builds an emotional connection with them.”

Last year, VCCP added Cadbury’s and Domino’s to its portfolio. With Domino’s it won CRM, digital comms, content marketing and ecommerce design. It also created VCCP iX, its experience design and engineering studio, to help clients improve their digital customer experience.

EY-Seren is EY’s specialist customer experience and digital innovation agency. Acquired by EY in 2015, the agency focuses on designing, building and optimising growth platforms for its clients.

As part of the EY network, EY-Seren can access deeper industry sector experience on all aspects of business growth than other agencies.

“Customer centricity is core to EY-Seren’s business approach,” the agency says. “While we are designers and technologists, if you cut us we bleed research. We use insights gained from customer research to successfully build and optimise growth platforms for businesses that create meaning and value for the people they are designed for.”

In the last 12 months, EY-Seren has created two new practices, Business Design and Storytelling, and has grown its consultancy practice by 40%.

Fee income: £40,700,000 (<12/16)

Year founded: 1998

Owner: MullenLowe Group

UK head: Peter Moody, Managing Partner

Contact: Peter Moody, Managing Partner, [email protected], +44 (0) 772 521 5408

Business split: 5% CRM, 20% Creative, 15% Ecommerce, 10% Managed Services, 20% Marketing, 10% Technical Development, 20% User Experience

Website: mullenloweprofero.com

Fee income: £36,642,600 (<06/17)

Year founded: 1999

Owner: CACI Inc

UK head: Greg Bradford, Chief Executive Officer

Contact: Kandyce Tester, Vice President, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 605 6081

Business split: 9% CRM, 10% Creative, 34% Managed Services, 9% Marketing, 4% Media Planning, 2% SEO, 2% Social, 25% Technical Development, 2% User Experience, 5% Software

Website: caci.co.uk

Fee income: £35,300,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2002

Owner: Chime Group Holdings Limited

UK head: Adrian Coleman, Founder & Group CEO

Contact: Roly Darby, CMO, [email protected], +44 (0) 759 566 2820

Business split: 8% CRM, 37% Creative, 5% Ecommerce, 9% Marketing, 9% Media Planning, 2% SEO, 10% Social, 10% Technical Development, 10% User Experience

Website: vccp.com

Fee income: £38,295,707 (<06/18)

Year founded: 2000

Owner: EY

UK head: Para Mullan, Operations Director

Contact: Richard Sedley, CEO, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 749 2549

Business split: 10% Creative, 10% Managed Services, 10% Marketing, 10% Technical Development, 60% User Experience

Website: ey-seren.com

MullenLowe Profero EY-Seren Limited

CACI VCCP Group LLP

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Valtech addresses transformational business challenges for clients. It uses an Agile methodology to deliver return on investment for clients based on its software engineering heritage, data expertise, and focus on user-centric design.

The agency has delivered data science and engineering programmes for clients as diverse as Audi and the Department for Work and Pensions. It is in a unique position to help its customers navigate the hype of big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence and deliver actual value in weeks, not years.

“Valtech cares deeply about helping customers build their strategy faster and helping clients avoid being stung by industry hype over terms like artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain,” it says.

In February 2018, Valtech acquired True Clarity, a UK-based digital agency. This acquisition increased Valtech’s depth of capabilities in ecommerce and experience platforms, particularly Sitecore, while adding a roster of brands to its existing portfolio, including EasyJet, Dyson and ASOS.

Jaywing is a data-science led agency, consultancy and martech business. Defined by mindset, experts with deep specialist knowledge in brand, strategy, AI, insight, data, digital, search, CRM and more, it collaborates across continents to create and innovate game-changing outcomes for clients from small-scale innovators to global brands.

Trusted partnerships, progressive data science and a deep-rooted “One Jaywing” are its hallmarks. One in ten Jaywingers is an experienced data scientist. The agency develops patentable AI products and tools, unearths hidden insights and builds integrated infrastructures that underpin and inspire creativity and innovation to realise boardroom aspirations.

“Change is good. Instigating it is better,” says Jaywing. “The old order is and should be challenged. Relationships and results trump glory-hunting. Fuelling growth or keeping brands safe is as much fun as nurturing startups. Working together as one, not limited by size or resource, is simply what we do.”

The agency’s new HQ was named as Prolific North’s most inspired space, also winning a prestigious national RIBA award and a FRAME award. Jaywing won Prolific North’s best large agency for the second year running and has expanded down under with the acquisition of Frank Digital.

Forward3D is a global digital performance marketing agency that specialises in data-driven, innovative campaigns. It works across paid search, SEO, content, display and social, using industry-leading linguistics, data science, attribution modelling and proprietary technology. The agency also delivers cutting-edge activity across over 100 territories and more than 50 languages on global and local platforms.

Forward3D puts data and innovation at the heart of everything it does and is constantly developing its services to stay ahead in a highly competitive landscape. The agency combines bespoke processes, proprietary technology and its poly-skilled workforce to provide clients with the resources to deliver a great experience for their customers.

“Our most important investment is in our people,” says Forward3D. “Encouraging an adaptable, poly-skilled workforce is key for staff development and the sustained growth of the agency. We reward success and are constantly augmenting our training, benefits and development programmes to ensure the wellbeing of our employees continues to be catered for.”

In December 2017, Forward3D joined the Stagwell Agency Group. It has embraced Stagwell’s vision of creating a “new model for agency networks”, maintaining its independent spirit and agnostic approach to media and working with incumbent partners as an extension of its clients’ marketing and brand teams.

RAPP UK says that its whole job is to convince one person – to get the most motivating message in front of them, at the most appropriate time. Its data analysts know who that person is, its strategists understand what they want and its creatives and technologists know how to get it to them.

The agency’s 50 years’ experience of first-party data helps it create work that is fiercely individual. Its ideas are born in data and bred in digital.

RAPP UK cares about being fiercely individual and creating work that talks directly to an individual. Work that makes the individual click that button. Watch that film. Buy that thing. “We can only do that with our fierce individuals who create and drive the essence of our business and our culture,” the agency says.

Over the past 12 months, the agency has been flexing its creative muscles, culminating in eight DMA awards, including a gold. Its creative flair, combined with its unique marketing sciences, data and technology division, Code Worldwide, has also seen RAPP UK triumphant on a number of competitive pitches, 19 to date.

Fee income: £31,800,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1995

Owner: Independent

UK head: Mark Broad, Head of Operations

Contact: Jonathan Cook, UK Sales Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 774 863 8031

Business split: 10% Creative, 30% Ecommerce, 5% Managed Services, 40% Technical Development, 10% User Experience

Website: valtech.com

Fee income: £29,521,045 (<03/17)

Year founded: 2006

Owner: Independent

UK head: Rob Shaw, CEO UK & Australia

Contact: Olly Sowden, Commercial Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 114 281 1200

Business split: 3% CRM, 11% Creative, 18% Ecommerce, 2% Managed Services, 4% Marketing, 11% Media Planning, 17% SEO, 3% Social, 28% Technical Development

Website: jaywing.com

Fee income: £26,120,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2004

Owner: The Stagwell Group

UK head: Martin McNulty, Chief Executive Officer

Contact: Supriya Dev-Purkaystha, Director of Client & Strategic Partnerships, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 476 4180

Business split: 70% Media Planning, 16% SEO, 11% Social, 3% Technical Development

Website: forward3d.com

Fee income: £29,554,000 (<12/16)

Year founded: 1965

Owner: Omnicom

UK head: Chris Freeland, Chief Executive Officer

Contact: Chris Freeland, CEO, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 443 0700

Business split: 68% CRM, 1% Managed Services, 6% Media Planning, 6% Social, 17% Technical Development, 2% Software

Website: rapp.com

Valtech Limited RAPP UK

Jaywing Forward3D

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Cello Signal seeks to help its clients prosper and prevail by delivering and harnessing audience intelligence, selecting and implementing smart choices in technology and delivering bold creativity and innovative market strategies. It works across data science, insight, software engineering, service design and digital marketing channels.

The agency champions the shift from traditional brand-agency relationships, moving from providing a specific, reactive service to helping clients transform and raise their game across the board. Increasingly its focus has been to break down traditional agency and service silos that obstruct and limit progress.

“We are driven to provide clarity for clients, from building expert teams to simpler, more easily adopted solutions for today’s complex marketing challenges,” says the agency. “Making sense of what the future may bring and addressing potential disruptions before they become an issue, the end goal is always to help clients do better.”

In the last 12 months its proprietary SaaS, www.pulsarplatform.com, reached £8m turnover and established an on-the-ground team in the US. It has also built out a specialist Signal Health team with briefs from EFPIA, the Innovative Medicines Initiative, Novo Nordisk, Merck, BUPA and a number of public health campaigns.

Fee income: £25,500,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1998

Owner: Cello Health PLC

UK head: John Rowley, CEO

Contact: Barney Hosey, Group Managing Partner, [email protected], +44 (0) 779 356 1260

Business split: 17% CRM, 21% Creative, 10% Managed Services, 8% Marketing, 3% Media Planning, 1% SEO, 14% Social, 15% Technical Development, 2% User Experience, 9% Software

Website: cellosignal.com

Cello Signal Group Limited23

Fetch

Fetch is a mobile-first agency. Its expertise lies in strategy, media, creative and analytics. Services include media planning and buying, full suite digital performance (from mobile marketing to paid social, search and SEM) as well as creative and analytics. Its clients are high performance brands who have a mobile-first mindset.

Fetch’s mindset is to be ‘Measurably Daring™’. To become the most valuable business partner for digital economy brands, Fetch challenges the status quo to drive a better business result. Fetch measures everything. This mantra applies to finding new ways to deliver growth, measuring performance or facilitating change.

Fetch takes a mobile-first approach to modern communications. Mobile at the core, but fully integrated with other channels, Fetch is passionate about driving business outcomes. Being Measurably Daring™ is core to Fetch’s success, culture, the way the agency works with clients and the way it hires.

In 2018, Fetch appointed Fetch appointed Dentsu Aegis veteran Patrick Affleck as its new CEO. Tasked with furthering Fetch’s goal to attract and digital economy brands, he leads more than 100 experts from its Shoreditch HQ. Fetch added to its growing presence in Asia by launching in Tokyo, Singapore, in addition to Hong Kong where it already has presence.

Fee income: £22,349,955 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2009

Owner: Dentsu Aegis Network

UK head: Patrick Affleck, UK CEO

Contact: Kathleen Carter, Head of Marketing, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 675 7020

Business split: 10% Creative, 5% Marketing, 80% Media Planning, 5% SEO

Website: wearefetch.com

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http://www.pulsarplatform.com


AND Digital accelerates the development of world-class digital capabilities. It guides clients as they navigate a changing tech and business landscape, building impactful products with its clients’ people. Because it believes every company needs its own tech capability, the agency teaches the skills required to stay ahead.

Remarkable things happen when the right people and technology meet, AND Digital says. But making that happen is hard. It aims to empower organisations with the ability to build digital products and grow their internal capability along the way. To achieve this, it blends technical craft and product expertise with an award-winning learning programme.

Digital excellence begins, and ends, with people – not technology, the agency adds. “As organisations today adapt to meet the fast-paced challenges of modern business, we passionately believe that success depends on a deep commitment to people – whether that’s developing top talent or helping end users fulfil their outcomes faster and more easily.”

In the last 12 months, the agency has expanded into Manchester and Leeds and taken new work on key products with iconic global businesses, including British Airways and The Telegraph. It has also started new technology partnerships with Amazon and Microsoft and welcomes Ramona Liberoff, Philip Green, Dr Ian MacDonald and Paul Coby to its Advisory Board.

Fee income: £17,831,276 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2013

Owner: Independent

UK head: Paramjit Uppal, CEO

Contact: Will Sergeant, Client Partnerships Lead, [email protected]

Business split: 80% Technical Development, 20% User Experience

Website: and.digital

AND Digital27

TMW Unlimited

TMW Unlimited is a customer engagement and digital experience agency. It helps its clients form lasting emotional connections with its customers through a unique ‘Intelligent Influence’ approach. This vision drives its award-winning Strategy, Creative, Data and Interactive teams to create rich customer experiences that deliver genuine customer engagement for clients.

The agency has honed cross-functional ways of thinking and works to engage with clients on their digital journey, ensuring a complete customer experience. Its ‘Intelligent Influence’ planning methodology enables it to create the most influential creative ideas, content and brand connections across the most relevant digital channels along the journey.

“We collaborate with our clients and their customers’ needs in order to create experiences that deliver results. Our knowledge of the marketing and technology landscapes helps clients build balanced solutions,” TMW Unlimited says.

The agency says it has seen its strongest year so far, with 16 account wins including Shell Retail, Clarion Housing Group and GSMA. It spoke at several key events, judged numerous awards and hosted its biggest Influence Session to date. Award wins included Gold at the DMAs, Digital Impact and Creative Tech Awards and a film shortlist at Cannes.

The agency says: “We approach customer engagement through ‘Intelligent Influence’. This allows us to combine all kinds of insight, from purchase data to neuroscience, to develop a genuine understanding of individual customers. We then transform these insights into creative ideas that genuinely change behaviour.

“Ultimately, we believe that the strongest feelings result in the longest lasting change, and that the most creative ideas are the most influential. We therefore build long-term value for our clients by helping them form lasting emotional connections with their customers.

“We are an award-winning agency working across the UK, Europe

and beyond for clients including Unilever, Vodafone, Ferrero, Virgin Trains, INFINITI, Shell Retail UK, Nissan, HSBC UK and Dogs Trust. We have also recently added to our existing client roster with 18 new accounts wins. Our approach to customer engagement is evident in the work we create for our clients.

“In the last few months, we have created a geo-targeted campaign first that triggered a manhunt on the streets of the UK for Lynx, positioned the ultra-sophisticated, deliciously smooth Kinder Bueno as the ultimate adulting reward and formed a unique collaboration with emerging UK artists to support the launch of VOXI, Vodafone’s new youth-oriented network.”

Fee income: £20,400,294 (<03/17)

Year founded: 1987

Owner: Digital Unlimited Group Ltd trading as the Unlimited Group

UK head: Darren Jackson, Operations Director and Head of Procurement

Contact: Chris Pearce, CEO, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 349 5642


Website: tmwunlimited.com

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Be Heard (MMT Digital and agenda21 Digital Ltd) operates at the intersection of communication, technology, data and consulting, and brings together the right expertise and skillsets from across the marketing and service innovation spectrum. This includes strategy, data analytics, creative and content marketing, user experience, design and build and media planning and buying.

The agency says its purpose is to help clients take control of their tomorrow, to embrace and thrive on the change that is re-inventing how they do business. It has an agnostic approach to how it does this, because the right answer must be shaped to precisely fit each and every client.

Be Heard says it cares deeply about helping its clients solve the problems of tomorrow, today. It also cares about the quality of its thinking and solutions: “It’s very important to us that our own product is best-in-our-market,” it says. Finally, it says it cares deeply about creating an internal culture for its employees which helps them to become the best they can possibly be.

In November 2017, Be Heard acquired the integrated advertising agency The Corner to strengthen the group’s capability in brand and creative.

Fee income: £19,200,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2015

Owner: Independent

UK head: Simon Pyper, Chief Executive Officer

Contact: Richard Costa-D’sa, Group Development Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 725 2359

Business split: 17% Creative, 13% Ecommerce, 11% Marketing, 17% Media Planning, 13% SEO, 3% Social, 14% Technical Development, 12% User Experience

Website: beheardgroup.com

Be Heard 26



The BIO Agency specialises in two things – digital innovation and digital transformation. Its expertise is in bringing together the right collaborative, customer-focused teams to find opportunities, change businesses and deliver results. It offers an end-to-end service encompassing vision and strategy, customer experience, creative innovation, delivery and technical deployment.

The agency’s new platform allows it to forecast the performance of experience-led projects. When this is combined with its proprietary methodologies, it is able to offer unparalleled insight into the impact of the work it does, allowing it to deliver something genuinely different.

“We care deeply about proving the benefits of what we do for users, for our customers and for the wider world,” The BIO Agency says. “We believe that our industry does great things, but it’s not always able to demonstrate why it works. Understanding and sharing the impact of digital is vital.”

Over the last year, The BIO Agency has developed an industry-first framework to make the industry more accountable and begun using it with clients. It says it is excited by the opportunities it gives the agency to extend its offering, reduce risk and prove results. The agency also opened in the US.

Fee income: £14,638,115 (<04/18)

Year founded: 2006

Owner: Tech Mahindra

UK head: Stephen Abram, CCO

Contact: Charlie Attenborough, Partnership Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 079 2450


Website: thebioagency.com

The BIO Agency28

AnalogFolk Ltd

AnalogFolk is an independent digital creative agency. Its mission is to use digital to make the analogue world better. It puts the consumer at the heart of everything it does to create connected brand experiences that help people achieve their ambitions delivered across content, data, digital products and technology.

AnalogFolk is a truly independent, global digital agency. This combination of scale and independence generates a powerful blend of global insights and services, with a challenger mentality. The agency says it enjoys the freedom to take calculated risks, adapt its working ways and experiment on the edge of technology ahead of competitors.

“Digital technology is the most powerful force for disruption the analogue world has seen,” the agency says. “With great power comes great responsibility.”

It continues: “Technology is neither good, nor bad. It’s what we do with it that matters. As brands, we have choices. At AnalogFolk we use digital technology to add value to people’s lives.”

The agency’s mission is to use digital to make the analogue world better. Whether it’s by giving universal access to personal training with Nike Trainers Hub, or encouraging families to spend time together with PepsiCo, AnalogFolk creates connected brand experiences that help people achieve their ambition.

It also carries this through in its behaviours as a company, helping Folk achieve their ambitions, and in 2017 it lived up to its 2016 commitment achieving a 53% female, 47% male gender split and 18% BAME representation among employees.

In the last 12 months, AnalogFolk celebrated its tenth birthday, launched an office in Shanghai, bolstered its leadership with key hires, won new clients and was crowned The Drum Content Agency of the Year. Additionally, it proudly joined the Diversity Taskforce and supports multiple mentoring schemes.

2017 was a big year for this independent. It added BT, Nike, Nando’s, and PepsiCo as clients, and grew its Unilever portfolio.

Tech met creativity in the agency’s award-winning facial recognition app Marmite TasteFace, while hip hop and football stars used their influence in Nike #FutureForward. The agency ranked higher than ever in Sunday Times Tech Track 100 for growing 65% in three years.

This year, AnalogFolk’s focus is on utilising data, AI and creativity to deliver uniquely engaging experiences, useful service, and meaningful communications. It bolstered its leadership team with pivotal hires across the business to accelerate growth, providing exceptional client service, nurturing its Folk and attracting new talent.

Fee income: £14,468,269 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2008

Owner: AnalogFolk Global Ltd

UK head: Ete Davies, Managing Director

Contact: Grace Wright, New Business and Marketing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 684 8444

Business split: 8% CRM, 25% Creative, 9% Ecommerce, 24% Marketing, 2% SEO, 10% Social, 10% Technical Development, 12% User Experience

Website: analogfolk.com

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McCann Connected integrates digital marketing solutions, operating from a single P&L, that are totally aligned to customer journeys to drive brand and business growth for its clients.

With 140 specialists across paid, owned and earned channels, the agency offers true channel breadth underpinned by class-leading strategy and insight to offer true depth.

The agency says it cares deeply about helping its clients’ brands play a meaningful role in people’s lives and humanising the relationship between businesses, brands, technologies and consumers.

In the last 12 months McCann Connected has made numerous senior hires including Matt Lalande, Digital Creative Group Head, Tom Cummings, Senior Social Media Account Director, Paul Goonoo, Digital Director and Michelle King, Digital Director. It also won three Euro Effies, including the Grand Prix, for its work for Aldi and Smyths Toys.

Fee income: £13,423,804 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1995

Owner: Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc (IPG)

UK head: Sue Little, Chief Executive

Contact: Jim Rothnie, New Business Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 162 582 2540


Website: mccannmanchester.com/connected/

McCann Connected30

Somo

Somo designs and builds premium quality digital products and experiences across every device from mobile to desktop to mixed reality. Through its Rapid Actionable Innovation engine, Somo leads digital transformation programmes by combining modern engineering, product leadership, and design culture to create digital products customers and staff love.

The agency partners with clients to rapidly develop digital products and experiences; conceiving and validating product ideas within six weeks, developing a Minimum Loveable Product within 12 weeks and iterating and scaling the product post market launch. It future proofs its products with its commitment to innovation and modern development frameworks.

Somo says it cares deeply about building customer self-serve, staff self-serve and staff and customer collaboration products that create real change, are loved by their end users and generate significant business results and create cultural change for clients.

Highlights from Somo’s digital product and experience delivery over the last 12 months include conceiving and launching the new customer self-serve adaptive site for Audi UK, delivering a staff/customer collaboration tablet platform for use in branch for a global bank and delivering a staff self-serve anti-counterfeiting solution for a luxury FMCG.

The agency considers that innovation will remain a driving force in 2018 and beyond for both startups and previous disruptors. It believes that a heightened emphasis on customers and context will lead to end-to-end integrated experiences. For businesses, viability, customer retention and strategic positioning are all on the line. Even the most agile businesses will feel the pressure to constantly evolve and keep up.

In its ‘2018: the Year the Disrupters Self-Disrupt’ report, Somo outlines the emerging business, tech and design trends driving innovation this year.

Fee income: £13,400,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2010

Owner: Independent

UK head: Carl Uminski, Co-Founder and COO

Contact: Vinny Hayes, Chief Client Officer, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 397 3550


Website: somoglobal.com

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https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/1746502/Somo 2018 Trends.pdf?t=1532868418808

https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/1746502/Somo 2018 Trends.pdf?t=1532868418808


Mirum is an agency of strategists, storytellers and technologists. It creates experiences that change the way people buy, communicate or behave.

Gartner calls Mirum a Visionary among global digital agencies, while it calls itself a borderless agency focused on future proofing business.

“We believe that change is essential to stay relevant in an accelerated and increasingly fragmented world,” the agency says. “We care deeply about helping our clients to deliver positive change. Change that benefits their business, their customers and society in general.”

In the last 12 months Mirum UK has hosted two Mirum Opus innovation conferences, launched a new Drupal Centre of Excellence in Budapest, expanded its studio offering with a new LA office and appointed a new COO and CTO for the enlarged group.

Stickyeyes’ expertise lies in its data-led approach. It creates content – driven by insights – that resonates with audiences and achieves objectives. Its proprietary toolset removes the guesswork and surfaces the right strategy to deliver results. Its distribution methodology maximises brand awareness and engagement.

The agency helps clients build compelling cases for their business needs to shift their thinking to an integrated approach, and highlights the potential benefits of doing so in a joined-up way. Channel specialists remain important but it is essential to have an integrated strategy behind it, supported by senior management, it says.

“We’re all encouraged to take a step back and focus on one thing: our clients’ audiences’ needs and wants,” Stickyeyes says. It continues: “Stickyeyes’ approach puts the audience right at the heart of the strategy and campaigns we develop, whether they want to buy business cards or find a financial services brand to trust.”

In the last year, Stickyeyes has launched its ‘Together’ strategy, which focuses on ensuring that its employees feel valued and empowered to develop their careers and deliver for clients. This has included working groups to tackle issues such as gender equality, mental health and work-life balance.

We Are Social produces socially-led creative ideas with social insights at the heart.

The agency puts social thinking at the centre of its work. It aims to deliver world-class creative ideas with forward-thinking brands. We Are Social believes in people, not platforms, and the power of social insight to drive business value.

We Are Social says it cares deeply about creating amazing work, developing its teams, its global family, helping brands navigate a constantly changing world and having fun doing it.

In the last 12 months the agency launched its first two dedicated divisions – We Are Social Studios and We Are Social Sport – and has made its first move into the Middle East with the acquisition of Socialize. In the UK, the agency also launched a placement programme focused on attracting diversity talent, called We Are Upstarts.

Fee income: £13,326,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2015

Owner: WPP plc

UK head: Antti Lauronen, Managing Director

Contact: Antti Lauronen, Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 656 7700

Business split: 15% Creative, 5% Ecommerce, 30% Marketing, 30% Technical Development, 20% User Experience

Website: mirumagency.com/

Fee income: £13,200,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1996

Owner: Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (IPG)

UK head: Phil Kissane, Managing Director

Contact: Paul Hill, Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 113 391 2929

Website: stickyeyes.com

Fee income: £13,267,813 (<12/16)

Year founded: 2008

Owner: BlueFocus Communication Group

UK head: Jim Coleman, UK CEO

Contact: Lauren Underwood, Communications Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 195 1700

Business split: 45% Creative, 10% Marketing, 30% Social, 15% Technical Development

Website: wearesocial.com/uk/

Mirum We Are Social

Stickyeyes Group

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IDHL Group

IDHL’s expertise lies in SEO, PPC, paid social, programmatic advertising, content, outreach, digital PR, web design and build, ecommerce, UX and CRO. It meshes technical expertise with imagination to generate measurable and impactful results, proven by its outstanding retention of enviable clients.

The agency believes there is more benefit to clients when they partner with specialists; it is a connected, growing network of select agencies, each a master of its trade and choosing to keep it focused to provide seamless, direct access to all, as would be expected from a full-service agency.

“Front and centre to all we achieve is our people,” the agency says. “Their job may be for us, but it’s our job to take care of them. From wellbeing to work environments, benefits to training and development, we invest heavily to provide the support and opportunities our people deserve.”

The first addition since the MBO, Pinpoint Designs, a leading Magento ecommerce agency based in Leeds, joined the IDHL Group in December. With significant industry synergies, this acquisition expands the agency’s connected specialist approach, joining up experts in search marketing, ecommerce development and UX experience to generate outstanding results for clients.

As the complexity of digital solutions grow, so too does the need to augment in-house marketing skills with specialist agencies. Unique in its connected approach, each agency within the IDHL Group has the freedom to focus on maintaining and developing its individual specialisms. Leveraging experts across the group enables IDHL to craft truly bespoke digital solutions while ensuring the full benefit of dedicated specialists.

Amongst its recent and most notable client wins is leading global investment company ADSS. IDHL is particularly proud of this win, not just because it is the agency’s largest group deal to date totalling £1.4m, but because this client

partnership required the flexibility and expert collaboration of its connected agency approach to successfully meet an extremely tight seasonal deadline.

The project spanned everything from UX to design and build, content to creative, SEO to PR and CRO. The agency’s extensive UX and persona research brought such clarity to the vision of ADSS that it drove a digital-first rebrand – an addition to the brief – that has subsequently been rolled out across all marketing channels together with collateral, print advertising for Bloomberg and even the redesign of office spaces.

Fee income: £12,909,762 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2000

Owner: Independent

UK head: Lisa Higham, Group Financial Director

Contact: Ian Lloyd, Director of Digital Operations, [email protected], +44 (0) 142 352 9300

Business split: 19% Creative, 3% Managed Services, 14% Marketing, 62% SEO, 3% User Experience

Website: idhlgroup.com

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SYZYGY is an international award-winning digital agency. It helps brands grow by aligning creative, media and strategy across the customer journey.

It is an independent digital agency that has all the benefits of being part of the world’s most powerful agency network. Its breadth of services is its true advantage. SYZYGY helps brands grow by aligning creative, media and strategy across the customer journey. It cares most about its people, its clients and its clients’ customers.

In the last 12 months, SYZYGY Group acquired 70% of the shares in strategy consulting firm different GmbH. It also acquired 51% of the shares in Catbird Seat, a digital performance marketing provider based in Munich and Berlin.

In March 2017, SYZYGY Group agencies unified under a single brand, SYZYGY. This culminated in moving to a new London office to foster richer networking and collaboration as well as to attract world-leading talent.

1000heads does word of mouth marketing with a digital focus. It works with different teams, from marketing, social and content, communications, brand, CRM, research, HR and leadership. By helping brands understand conversation it develops ways to improve offerings and influence, amplifying positivity, inspiring indifference through disruption and reducing negativity through action.

1000heads is not an agency built around departments but crafted around driven, creative people blended together to provide an alchemy of intelligent insight, imaginative ideas, exceptional implementation and potent impact.

The agency believes in creativity without boundaries. The business is made of free thinkers, unburdened by what it has done before. Every day it strives to bring world-stopping social ideas to life inspiring participation, conversation and sharing.

It helps clients navigate marketing and communications landscape providing a coherent, effective approach to marketing that clients can rely on. In the last 12 months, the agency has seen significant client wins.

Fee income: £12,890,821 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1995

Owner: SYZYGY AG

UK head: Media - Phil Stelter, Managing Director and Chief Media Officer. Creative - Mark Ellis, Managing Director

Contact: Phil Stelter, Managing Director and Chief Media Officer, [email protected], Mark Ellis, Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 206 4000

Business split: 20% Creative, 10% Ecommerce, 1% Managed Services, 5% Marketing, 20% Media Planning, 14% SEO, 3% Social, 15% Technical Development, 12% User Experience

Website: syzygy.co.uk

Fee income: £12,567,657 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2000

Owner: 1000headsGroup Ltd

UK head: Frank Grindrod, UK Managing Director

Contact: Mike Rowe, CEO, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 206 2000

Business split: 40% Creative, 20% Marketing, 40% Social

Website: 1000heads.com

SYZYGY 1000heads36 37



Feed

Amido Ltd

Feed is a global digital agency scaling personalised communications through bespoke technology. It is one of the world’s fastest growing independent digital agencies, with its expertise extending across CRM, social, AI, UI and UX design, all the way through to the innovation of new technology platforms and tools.

The agency uses technology and AI to “release the human”, liberating its clients and team to do the valuable tasks that humans do better than machines. Leveraging bespoke AI, Feed makes business as usual efficient and error-free so its partnership can focus on strategic development and creativity.

It automates and augments the creative process through its unique creative production platform, Native, allowing its global clients to seamlessly deliver better, faster, cheaper communications.

The Feed way is to take the best of machine and the best of humans in order to deliver the best solutions and services for its clients.

“In an uncertain and changing agency landscape Feed cares about re-inventing the agency model for the world they, and their clients, are moving towards at speed,” the agency says, adding that it also cares deeply about “a world where creativity is delivered with value, and at speed through automation, without sacrificing quality”.

Feed is creative and unafraid to be experimental. The agency prides itself on its innovative, collaborative and entrepreneurial nature, which has helped turnover grow by more than 50% per annum in the last decade,

as well as open offices in London, Manchester, Berlin and Sydney.

In the past 12 months, Feed hired Steven Bennett-Day as CCO to launch a creative division, opened an office in San Francisco and hired Tamara Hill as MD North America. The agency also expanded its London and Manchester offices and CEO Matt Lynch has just been signed as a regular contributor to Forbes.com writing about digital transformation.

Amido’s expertise lies in assembling and integrating proven cloud technologies, often building solutions around an existing core, enabling clients to prioritise investment between commodity services and those delivering competitive advantage. Clients ask Amido to help them build resilience at scale, flexibility for the future and differentiation of customer experience while minimising business risk and build cost.

Amido prides itself on designing and implementing cloud-first solutions that are engineered with integrity. Having gained vital and practical expertise delivering successful cloud transformation programmes, Amido helps organisations that existed before the wide availability of cloud and therefore juggle managing substantial legacy infrastructure with wanting to develop new products and services, quickly.

The agency cares about how digital experiences can improve everyday life. Amido sees technology as a tool to improve human experiences. Technology ensures the agency staff have the digital tools and knowledge they need to enjoy their work and succeed. For their clients, smarter use of technology helps them innovate at speed.

In the past 12 months, the agency has seen significant client wins in both the public and private sectors. This has allowed it to continue to invest in its people, as demonstrated

by the agency’s placement in the Great Place to Work 2018 league table. It also won at the UK Cloud Awards and is placed in the FT 1000 Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies.

Amido’s award-winning work with Global is one of its highlights as it demonstrates how the rapid deployment of cloud technology can solve real business problems and produce a tangible return on investment. The solution has more than halved the work required by their teams to search and compile promotional audio content examples for their clients; a massive improvement which allows their sales teams to focus on more value-add commercial opportunities.

Amido is proud of how its sustainable growth (256% over three years) has allowed it to give back to the third sector. By collaborating with Save the Children International (StC), Amido was able to improve its IT efficiency whilst retaining its unique global brand presence worldwide and national localism in the international marketplace. By building StC a market-leading identity solution spanning 120 countries, it encouraged cross-border collaboration, significantly reduced duplication of effort and created a greater feeling of togetherness across the humanitarian organisation.

Fee income: £12,146,567 (<04/18)

Year founded: 2005

Owner: Independent

UK head: Dudley Wild, UK Head of Operations

Contact: Matt Lynch, Global CEO, [email protected], +44 (0)870 766 9076

Business split: 48% CRM, 25% Creative, 2% SEO, 3% Social, 10% Technical Development, 12% User Experience

Website: feed.xyz

Fee income: £11,805,596 (<03/18)

Year founded: 2010

Owner: Independent

UK head: Alan Walsh, CEO

Contact: Simon Hampton, Commercial Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 176 4690

Business split: 100% Technical Development

Website: amido.com

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Four Communications Group is an integrated marketing communications agency with digital and social at its heart. It brings together a range of marketing services (digital, social, media planning and buying, advertising, branding, creative, behaviour change, public relations, public affairs and sponsorship) and creates seamless campaigns which deliver the best possible ROI.

Beautiful things happen when you put the right ingredients together, the agency says. It combines a broad range of integrated communications and marketing services and unrivalled sector knowledge into one exceptional offer, which it calls the power of together. It is this that has made the agency one of the most successful integrated start-ups since the millennium, it says.

“Four values underpin everything we do: Expertise, Partnership, Intelligence and Community – EPIC,” the agency says. “We are experts in our chosen sectors, true partners to our clients, base our campaigns on insight and intelligence and are a community of staff with a strong, diverse and creative spirit.”

In 2017, Four acquired social analytics specialist Legend Engage and put its proprietary Mapper360 methodology at the heart of the agency. The insights, content and engagement it is now able to deliver for clients is transformational across the private and public sector.

Fee income: £11,606,591 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2003

Owner: Independent

UK head: Nan Williams, Chief executive

Contact: Paul Dalton-Borge, Managing Director Creative & Digital, [email protected], +44 (0) 797 310 5282

Business split: 3% CRM, 22% Creative, 9% Marketing, 18% Media Planning, 5% SEO, 41% Social, 2% User Experience

Website: fourcommunications.com

Four Communications Group40

Visualsoft Ltd

Visualsoft is an award-winning ecommerce platform and digital marketing business that was established in 1998. The company works with more than 1,000 clients to provide bespoke ecommerce solutions and helps grow businesses online by effective implementation of digital marketing, including SEO, PPC, social media, email marketing, affiliate marketing and conversion rate optimisation.

Visualsoft operates in a highly competitive and diverse market that is changing as quickly as new technology develops. What is most unique about the business is its all-encompassing offering of ecommerce, digital marketing and support from beneath one roof.

As an agency, Visualsoft is just as passionate about its people as it is about innovation of products and services. The business houses a dedicated R&D team and recently implemented a full benefits package to all employees including unlimited holidays and flexible working hours.

The business recently launched Shared Success – a disruptive, all-inclusive, commission-based solution designed to deliver accelerated retail sales growth. Instead of the usual fixed fee client-agency commercial model, costs are based on a percentage of client sales and offer a range of services and prices that genuinely reflect their needs.

Twenty years ago, Visualsoft set out to provide an ecommerce solution that would deliver an outstanding experience for its clients and their customers alike, paving the way for better technology in the industry. Visualsoft’s clients have enjoyed success through working with the agency over the past year, using its expert development and marketing teams to grow their businesses online.

The agency is confident in its approach, investing heavily in innovation and forging partnerships with industry heavyweights such as Google, Klarna, Amazon, Worldpay, Sage, Barclaycard and Bing.

This year, Visualsoft was named by Google as a Tier 1 Agency in Europe, showing its ongoing commitment to developing its services for the benefit of its clients. The team has worked with more than 1,200 clients in the past year to continually grow its online stores through Visualsoft’s proprietary ecommerce platform and digital marketing services.

“Our consistent R&D and re-investment into our offering means we have innovated and stayed ahead of our clients’ expectations,” the agency says. “Launching strategic marketing services propel our clients’ growth to new heights.”

Fee income: £11,054,397 (<06/18)

Year founded: 1998

Owner: Independent

UK head: David Duke, Chief Operations Officer

Contact: David Duke, Chief Operations Officer, [email protected], +44 (0) 164 263 3604

Business split: 30% Creative, 30% Ecommerce, 40% Marketing

Website: visualsoft.co.uk

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Inviqa equips businesses to achieve their goals faster, accelerate growth and drive innovation. Its digital services support clients across the entire digital product lifecycle, from digital strategy and ideation through to solution-build, implementation, and continuous improvement. Inviqa has ten years’ experience helping diverse organisations address complex business requirements.

Inviqa can support organisations all the way from digital strategy into digital product delivery and beyond. Its expert practitioners are thinkers that do: business strategists, software developers and everything in between.

The agency says it cares about helping organisations solve complex business requirements through digital initiatives. It is invested in helping clients become customer-centric organisations and cares about driving value in the long term through continuous improvement. This is underpinned by a team of people passionate about the quality and output of Inviqa’s work.

Inviqa was recognised at the 22nd Annual Webby Awards for its work on Arsenal.com, which won the 2018 People’s Voice award in the Websites: Sports Team category. It was also shortlisted as Computing’s 2017 Digital Service Company of the year.

Reading Room believes in producing work that is perfectly in sync with user needs, with other systems, with business goals and client objectives. Intuitive, beautiful and powerful.

The agency specialises in human-centric, customer experiences from digital product innovation to transformative business processes.

Reading Room says it cares deeply about its clients and client satisfaction, business performance and the working environment. It seeks to be a financially successful agency that clients want to hire and the best people want to work for. It is innovative, quality-led and a great place to work, it adds.

In the past 12 months, Reading Room was proud to be named one of the first agency partners of the PwC Tech She Can initiative. It also ensured The Royal Household’s online presence did not creak over a rather important weekend. Kirstie Buchanan returned to the business as Strategic Development Director and Jamie Griffiths was promoted to MD.

Prophecy Unlimited builds enduring relationships between individuals and brands by making every interaction in the journey valuable. That means it has deep specialisms in technology, data and creativity, and can produce platforms, campaigns and content for its clients.

The result of a merger between a CRM agency and retail activation agency, Prophecy Unlimited is brilliantly placed to craft journeys that run from acquisition to advocacy. Owned by the Unlimited Group, it is able to draw on a whole extra army of experts in the impact of art and science.

Prophecy Unlimited makes work that is worth people’s time. It doesn’t churn stuff out, overloading feeds and inboxes, making it hard for clients to stand out. It is about real people, not data fields. It produces work that is worthy of an audience’s attention and of the ambition of the talented people who make it.

Launching in May 2017, Prophecy Unlimited has focused on bringing together two long-standing agencies to deliver joined-up customer journeys across all touchpoints and channels. In October 2017, it became lead agency for Barratt Developments, delivering a joined-up strategy across CRM, digital transformation and creative.

Fee income: £10,709,767 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2007

Owner: Independent

UK head: Yair Spitzer, CEO and Co-Founder

Contact: Richard Jackson, Co-Founder & Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 1799 555


Website: inviqa.com

Fee income: £10,650,000 (<03/18)

Year founded: 2017

Owner: The Unlimited Group

UK head: Peter Brown, CEO

Contact: Ewan Moore, Business Development Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 117 244 0800

Business split: 49% CRM, 23% Creative, 1% Managed Services, 10% Marketing, 10% Social, 7% User Experience

Website: prophecyunlimited.com

Inviqa UK Prophecy Unlimited

Reading Room

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Fee income: £10,626,187 (<10/17)

Year founded: 1996

Owner: Idox Group PLC

UK head: Jamie Griffiths, Managing Director

Contact: Tamara Evans, UK Business Manager, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 173 2800

Business split: 25% Creative, 15% Ecommerce, 10% Managed Services, 15% Marketing, 10% Media Planning, 5% SEO, 2% Technical Development, 10% User Experience, 3% Software

Website: readingroom.com



Maverick Advertising & Design Ltd

Maverick Advertising & Design is an impact agency that delivers strategy and creative solutions, products, services and effective communications, for businesses, consumers and employees across every market around the world. As a truly integrated international creative agency, Maverick does global servicing.

Pioneers of the global centralised agency model, Maverick delivers impact first. Its single group production model enables it to serve every world market from a central location. Utilising creative, digital and content talent, it collaborates to deliver innovative and impactful ideas for clients, leading to meaningful returns and business impact.

The agency cares deeply about relationships – with its people, clients, customers and its partners. “Our internationalist spirit, combined with innovation, bravery and a collaborative attitude enable us to solve the biggest challenges. As our name suggests, we aren’t followers, we seek what lies ahead. We care about bringing our partners aspirations and objectives to reality,” Maverick says.

In the past 12 months, the agency has delivered and launched a global enterprise engagement platform used by every world market. It has also launched a standalone production company to extend its capabilities, opened a second office by Tower Bridge and is launching offices in Germany and USA. It was also awarded projects from clients including DHL and Coca-Cola and won business from Allianz, Sodexo, Lafarge, Honda, Sodexo, Kuoni and Ann Summers.

Commercially, 2017 and 2018 have been extremely busy, with the group doubling its turnover. It also increased its digital and content-focused revenue by over 80% with its new business wins.

Over the last 15 years Maverick has grown as a naturally integrated business, keeping all its means of origination and production in house. Keeping everything within Maverick offers clients many benefits: they can plan clear strategies and originate creative and technology solutions, then transcreate them for local markets, using the same tightly knit team for everything. In short, it gives clients a highly creative, collaborative and flexible way to work.

In 2017, the agency celebrated its 15-year anniversary in true Maverick style, running its own summer music festival. It plans to hold another next year.

In the next 12 months, Maverick will expand its satellite office network. It has already opened a new office very close to its London Bridge base to act as a collaboration centre for large projects. It also plans to expand its international network with a similar satellite solution in Germany and in the US, in late 2018 and early 2019 respectively.

With a continued focus on strong organic growth, supported by two additional businesses launched by the group over the next 12 months, 2018 and 2019 will be very exciting.

Fee income: £10,500,000 (<06/18)

Year founded: 2006

Owner: Independent

UK head: Chris Tedman, Chief Operating Officer

Contact: Carron Edmonds, Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 378 6969

Website: mavad.co.uk

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The Big Group Holdings Ltd

The agency provides three key pillars of expertise built around customer experience, marketing technology and creative performance marketing.

It is highly skilled and experienced in combining great creative work and amazing execution with insightful data analysis to ensure client ROI.

At Big Group, the idea sits at the heart of every project and every idea. “Supported by comprehensive research and factual data we ensure that originality and creativity is at the heart of all we do,” the agency says.

In the past 12 months, the agency has received 26 industry nominations and six industry awards. Placing in the top 50 of Econsultancy’s Top 100 Digital Agencies was a point of pride, it says. Its Newbury offices moved into its farm complex. Big Group also completed the acquisition of Frontline Retail, which provides a global footprint in retail display industry and welcomed 15 new colleagues to the team.

Big Group is an award-winning, independent, creative marketing agency. Its enthusiasm and passion are borne out of its expertise in live events, design, digital, social and strategic thinking. The agency’s team is 140 strong, working out of offices in London, Newbury and Bath, and in 2018 its footprint extended to Amsterdam.

It builds long-term client partnerships by helping clients succeed through its key disciplines – customer experience, marketing technology and performance marketing – partnering with technology companies such as Salesforce, Sitecore and Google.

Creativity is at the heart of what Big Group does. In the first half of 2018, Big won ten industry awards including Creative Strategy, B2B Marketing, Innovation and Digital Strategy. Apart from winning the 2018 RAR Grand Prix, its most cherished award is for Client Services. Big takes pride in that fact that many of its awards have been based on client feedback for its strategic thinking and creativity in its execution.

Big Group works in some of the fastest moving and most innovative industries today like financial, automotive, technology, retail, music and fashion. It applies bigger thinking to everything it does and is passionate about helping brands stand out from the crowd.

Fee income: £10,300,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1991

Owner: Independent

UK head: Nick Scott, CEO

Contact: Edward Riseman, General Manager, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 229 8827


Website: biggroup.co.uk

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Red Badger

Red Badger delivers high-quality digital products to complex businesses, transforming practices and people along the way. Enabling clients to align around a vision, its approach to embedding innovation and insights into product development ensures the right products are built, scaled and business results are realised quickly.

The agency’s people are digital transformation experts who innovate and deliver. While most companies approach the agency for help creating high quality digital products, Red Badger’s impact is further reaching. Offering leadership and coaching throughout its engagements, it helps businesses from vision and strategy to entrepreneurial management, product delivery through to scaling excellence.

“Red Badger are people focused and clients love their cultural impact,” it says. In 2017 the agency established a Social Impact team to drive focus to its volunteering efforts, sharing knowledge with students, teaching refugees to code and raising funds for charities. It also built the Pride in London app.

In 2018, Red Badger was recognised as a Sunday Times 100 Best Company to Work For, the result of an independent staff survey. The agency’s ‘Give As You Earn’ charity contributions received a Platinum award from the government and it placed at number 181 in the FT 1000 Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies.

Red Badger is on a mission to make the technology industry a more socially conscious and inclusive one. In 2017 it established a dedicated Social Value task force to make this happen.

Long-term collaborations have been established with regional and national non-profits including Code Your Future, Anthony Nolan Trust, You Make It, Alzheimer’s Society and Pride in London. Engagements include participating in local mentoring schemes, providing pro bono training, consultancy and delivering an innovative, open source app.

The Red Badger Academy, a skills and knowledge platform, is the agency’s proposition to facilitate culture change. It enables clients to begin to solve their problems for themselves, using Red Badger’s IP and ways of working to actively build capability, not dependence, ensuring transformation continues without the agency.

Led by a new management structure, Red Badger continues to grow the core offer of vision, strategy and digital product development capability. By hiring Dr Jimmy Muldoon to create an insights offering, it is able to better optimise products with data-driven decision-making.

Adding News UK and Fidelity Institutional in the last year to its ongoing engagements of large transformation programmes with global banks and Fortnum & Mason, Red Badger is G-Cloud approved and looking to add government projects to its portfolio.

Fee income: £9,496,484 (<10/17)

Year founded: 2010

Owner: Independent

UK head: Cain Ullah, CEO

Contact: Cain Ullah, Chief Executive Officer, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 567 0555


Website: red-badger.com

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Poke’s expertise lies in branded digital products and services and digital brand communications. The agency is one of the few pureplay digital creative agencies remaining in the market. It also has a breadth of capabilities and human-centric approach, resulting in a strong blend of creative and technology. The agency’s creative, UX and tech teams work hand in hand to create hard working communication solutions with the consumer at the core.

As part of Publicis, Poke has access to one of the world’s largest networks. By accessing expertise from this network, it can provide clients with seamless services across a multitude of disciplines. The agency also has joint business plans in place with Google and Facebook, as well as key contacts within a number of other platforms. These relationships enable Poke to bring the latest product updates, best practices, consumer insights and platform experts directly to its clients.

Poke cares deeply about digital media and its impact on our lives and culture. “Whether it’s about leading technology or evolving new models of communication, we try to lead our clients to more lucrative, more effective, but equally culture making, brand building, full spectrum creative outings,” the agency says.

In the past 12 months, Nick Farnhill took on the additional remit of CEO, Publicis London. Nik Roope’s role expanded to Global Creative Digital Lead on Heineken. Both roles provide growing digital communication expertise across Publicis UK.

Fee income: £9,441,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2001

Owner: Publicis Worldwide

UK head: Nick Farnhill, CEO and Co-Founder

Contact: Amber Addley, Head of New Business, Poke, [email protected], +44 (0) 737 7412 355


Website: pokelondon.com

Poke48

Equator is a strategic digital agency that connects worlds. It believes brand transformation starts with changing people’s lives for the better. Its ability to connect creative, marketing and technology enables it to consistently deliver joined-up, transformational thinking that ultimately gives its clients the edge in an ever-changing marketplace.

Equator describes itself as a true connected agency for the digital age. Its data-driven strategy aims to define breakthrough customer insight and business vision and its approach creates more effective brand experience ecosystems. It treats its clients’ financial targets as its own, which is why everything we do is about delivering remarkable results, it says.

“We care deeply about changing people’s lives for the better through three principles; amazing things happen when we make new connections; insights are the soul of every great brand; and that remarkable results are the ultimate measure of our work,” Equator says.

The last 12 months have been very exciting for Equator. It has won work with prestigious, international brands such as Virgin Active, Santander and PwC, among others. Its innovation team has been developing a variety of solutions using exciting, cutting-edge technology for new and current clients.

Fee income: £9,402,129 (<10/17)

Year founded: 1999

Owner: Independent

UK head: John McLeish, Managing Director

Contact: Kat MacBride, Marketing Executive, [email protected], +44 (0) 141 229 1800

Business split: 55% Creative, 5% Managed Services, 25% Marketing, 15% SEO

Website: eqtr.com

Equator49



The foundation of Foolproof’s approach is creating a meaningful, actionable understanding of the customers it is designing for. It applies this understanding to make better decisions in product strategy, design and front-end development to create and build powerful, effective digital experiences.

Foolproof creates digital products and services that have meaning and value to the people that use them. Through this it creates better business outcomes for its clients.

It is important that the customer or end-user is properly represented in the process of design, the agency says. “The things we make should allow people to clearly understand their choices and confidently make good decisions for themselves,” it adds.

In the past 12 months, the agency was delighted to have a new creative director, with the internal promotion of James Reeve.

Fee income: £8,885,376 (<03/18)

Year founded: 2002

Owner: Zensar Technologies PLC

UK head: Marc Oldman, Executive Director (Operations)

Contact: Ed Walker, Business Development Director, [email protected], +44 (0)207 539 3840


Website: foolproof.co.uk

Foolproof Ltd50

twentysix’s expertise lies in helping clients unravel the mass of online data available, to generate real insights and more ROI; understand audiences better, as well as how they use their digital assets through research and user testing; create the best online customer experience to drive ROI; and make them more visible than the competition online.

The agency’s ability to improve clients’ ROI by unravelling the mass of online data to understand audience behaviour is supported by its in-house research facilities; its technical size and breadth of expertise and its integrated media neutral capabilities to get clients seen online.

twentysix says it cares deeply about its clients’ work and their satisfaction and the agency’s business performance. It also cares about its talented team and striking a work-life balance through encouraging wellbeing. “We care about being a financially successful agency that clients want to hire, the best people want to work for, to be innovative, quality led and a great place to work,” it says.

In the past 12 months, the agency launched new Enhanced Biometric UX testing capabilities and Galvanic Skin Response analysis, allowing clients to tap in to their customers’ emotions. Its May charity auction event for Max Appeal raised more than £5,000 and Joel Spence was promoted to CGO.

Fee income: £8,884,000 (<02/18)

Year founded: 1996

Owner: MSQ Partners

UK head: Gail Dudleston, Global CEO

Contact: Gail Dudleston, Global CEO, [email protected], +44 (0) 796 609 7975


Website: twentysixdigital.com

twentysix51

Dept Design & Technology Ltd is a digital agency of 900 experienced thinkers and makers in 10 countries across Europe and the US. Dept merges creativity, technology and data expertise. It specialises in large scale digital content management and transformation projects bringing together experienced Depsters from its specialist teams.

The agency comprises experts in strategy, organisation, creative, technology, marketing, commerce and data. Its expertise lies in collaboration, support and tackling problems fast, and in guiding clients to anticipate what others could not. It is big enough to deliver and small enough to care.

Deptcares is the agency’s internal initiative to use the skills it has as digital experts to help improve climate change, poverty, proper education and much more. This initiative has led to pro bono app development work for charities and non-profit organisations as well as internal activities such as Meatless Week.

Dept continues to grow organically and through acquisition. In the past 12 months, more than 500 new Depsters have joined and in April 2018 all Dept agencies came together under the Dept brand.

Fee income: £8,868,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2007

Owner: Dept UK Holding Ltd

UK head: Emma Robinson, Operations Director

Contact: Brian Robinson, Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0)161 441 0600

Business split: 25% Creative, 25% Managed Services, 50% Technical Development

Website: deptagency.com/en-gb/

Dept Design & Technology Ltd52



Croud is a global digital marketing agency, offering services that include PPC, SEO, content, programmatic, paid social, creative, and analytics. Founded in 2011, Croud works with some of the world’s leading brands, including Victoria’s Secret, Regus, DKNY, and Virgin Trains, across more than 100 markets.

Croud’s unique model is powered by exceptional talent, custom-built tech, and the world’s first crowd-sourced network of digital experts. Croud’s unique ‘Croud Control’ technology platform and network of 1,600 ‘Croudies’ mean it can automate what slows other agencies down and delivers clients truly impactful and efficient results.

With a fast-growing team of developers, Croud drives efficiency by building bespoke technology and tools, freeing up the internal team to focus on client strategy. Maintaining a great working culture is also fundamental, with Croud being recognised as one of the Best Small Companies to Work For in 2018.

Croud has continued to deliver year-on-year revenue growth in excess of 40%, thanks to a growing client base and rapidly expanding service areas such as programmatic, paid social, and SEO. Recognised as The Drum’s Organic Team of the Year, Croud has also been listed in the Tech Track 100.

Fee income: £8,394,950 (<03/18)

Year founded: 2011

Owner: Independent

UK head: Jon Ditchburn, Chief of Global Operations

Contact: Carly Price, Head of Marketing, [email protected], +44 (0) 208 017 7723

Business split: 1% Creative, 20% Marketing, 51% Media Planning, 28% SEO

Website: croud.com

Croud54

KHWS Limited is the Brand Commerce agency. It creates behavioural-led marketing that triggers sales across the full-digital mix. It is equally happy designing and building a stunning website, producing powerful interactive content, developing engaging social campaigns, implementing effective eCRM/ecommerce or creating in-store activations.

We all use heuristics (hardwired mental shortcuts) to make decisions. KHWS Limited reframed nine of the most relevant to purchase decisions, which it calls Sales Triggers. Using its behavioural-led insight tools it creates digital strategies and creative marketing which has a positive impact on people’s buying decisions.

By 2021, it is estimated the UK will spend more than £20 billion through grocery ecommerce alone. To ensure brands prosper in the future, the agency is focused on understanding shopper behaviour online. Its behavioural-led proprietary planning model helps inform more effective creative ideas that enable brands to secure a place in the cart.

It was the agency’s 25th birthday in May, which presented a moment of celebration, but also a moment of reflection. Digital has transformed the world we live in. But while technology has evolved, our brains make purchase decisions in the same way. It’s why brand commerce is proving so attractive to clients.

Fee income: £8,362,503 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1993

Owner: Independent

UK head: Andrew Watts/Nick Hawkes/Mark Skelton, Founding Partner

Contact: Andrew Watts, Founding Partner, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 324 3346

Business split: 1% CRM, 16% Creative, 11% Managed Services, 52% Marketing, 17% Technical Development, 4% User Experience

Website: khws.co.uk

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Rufus Leonard

Rufus Leonard is an independent brand experience agency with a heritage in digital and design. It has expertise in brand optimisation, service design and build, organisational engagement and technology.

In an increasingly complex world, it can be challenging for businesses to deliver consistent, connected and meaningful brand experiences. As Brand Experience Engineers, the agency takes a forensic approach to design, build and fine-tune the engines of brand experience. This engineering mindset makes for more visionary thinking and greater attention to detail.

“As an agency, we care deeply about creating extraordinary brand experiences because they have the power to improve people’s lives,” it says. “Our mission is to make a genuine difference through our clients to every person in the UK.”

The agency restructured the business to become Brand Experience Engineers, applying its full service offering to deliver brand strategy through to digital design and build for Lloyd’s Register, British Red Cross and The Gym Group. It also used its own Brand Experience Index to win business with Reckitt Benckiser without a pitch.

The agency says: “[As] Brand Experience Engineers, we understand the importance of basing strategies on clear insight and measurement. For years, we used many of the traditional measurement tools such as brand tracking, CSAT and NPS. However, we constantly found it frustrating that no overall measurement existed for brand experience.

“We knew that understanding this would help us identify moments across the entire journey where it’s most important for a brand to exceed customer expectations. It would allow brands to create roadmaps for where to concentrate their effort, as part of the journey to constantly improve experience across the board.

“That’s why we developed the Brand Experience Index, to fill this gap. It finally gives us an overall measurement for brand experience, something that has been to date virtually impossible to extract. The 2018 Brand Experience Index gives you some examples of the insight and measurement this tool delivers, allowing brands to create even more robust brand strategies for this fast-changing world.”

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Fee income: £8,446,964 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1992

Owner: Independent

UK head: Will Rowe, Chief Operating Officer

Contact: Annemari Koppinen, New Business Manager, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 404 4490

Business split: 20% Creative, 15% Ecommerce, 10% Managed Services, 10% Marketing, 30% Technical Development, 15% User Experience

Website: rufusleonard.com


http://www.rufusleonard.com/services/brand-experience-index

http://www.rufusleonard.com/services/brand-experience-index


Redweb’s expertise lies in its deep understanding of existing platforms and emerging technologies and how to harness these to drive transformation. Redweb’s in-house digital experts in strategy, user experience, content and marketing combine this knowledge with a clear strategic vision, enabling clients to form lasting connections with their target audiences.

Redweb’s independent status leaves it free to explore, innovate and adapt quickly. Its specialists act as an extension of clients’ in-house teams, complementing their businesses with a blend of insight and experience that empowers them to realise their ambitions, overcome challenges and delight their customers.

Nurturing talent is key to Redweb’s values. It’s why the agency hosts Digital Wave, a conference about digital careers for young people, each year. It’s also why Redweb cultivates a culture that encourages staff development, creativity and innovation – something that benefits its roster of clients.

Last year, Redweb celebrated its 20th year as an agency. Changes to the C-Suite included appointing James Watts as CFO, Luke Platt as CEO, and Redweb’s Founder, Andrew Henning, becoming Chief Strategy Officer from CEO. These changes will help the agency capitalise on opportunities and push forward.

4Ps is a Digital Performance agency, built from the ground up on AI consultancy projects. Developing client-customised algorithms that fuel unparalleled efficiency and value into the activation channels (PPC, SEO, display, affiliates and UX), and creation (design, editorial and creative). 4Ps also has key vertical expertise in retail, travel and auto.

4Ps are Marketing Engineers. With 15% of its human resources in technology roles, 10% of its annual net revenue invested in R&D, combined with the international Artefact network of nearly 1,000 employees, it blends marketing solutions with data and technology to deliver local or global efficiency and performance.

“Our mantra is: personal, client and agency growth. Everything starts with people,” the agency says. “We know that if we invest in our people, our people will grow and invest themselves in the work they deliver for our clients. Because of that, our clients’ growth and success will make our agency successful.”

In the last six months, the agency has added three prestigious, international clients to its portfolio, each of which is a great addition to its three core business verticals of retail, automotive and travel: M&S, international SEO; Nissan, international SEO and Melia Hotels, international PPC.

Fee income: £8,323,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1997

Owner: Independent

UK head: Luke Platt, CEO

Contact: Luke Platt, CEO, [email protected], +44 (0) 120 277 9944

Business split: 20% Creative, 5% Ecommerce, 20% Managed Services, 5% Marketing, 5% Media Planning, 5% SEO, 30% Technical Development, 10% User Experience

Website: redweb.com

Fee income: £8,266,637 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2008

Owner: Independent

UK head: Paul Smith, Managing Director

Contact: Liz Partridge, Head of Client Engagement, [email protected], +44 (0) 770 374 4657

Business split: 9% Marketing, 47% Media Planning, 36% SEO, 7% Technical Development, 1% User Experience

Website: 4psmarketing.com

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Hugo & Cat brings tightly-focused strategic, UX, brand, design and tech capabilities together under one roof. The agency works hard to maintain customer centricity across each of these disciplines, liaising closely with clients to solve complex challenges. Hugo & Cat takes pride in its long-term client relationships.

The agency helps clients imagine their future by bringing together consulting, branding, experience design and technology. Its clients often look for rapid innovation to take new digital experiences to market fast. The agency’s ‘Agile Accelerator’ enjoys success, allowing end customers to trial new services in a matter of weeks.

Hugo & Cat prioritises continual improvement – both within the agency and for its clients. It balances this with a deep appreciation, and commitment to, the power of brand. Strong brands are the ones that can drive emotional connections and create long-term value for companies.

In the past 12 months, Hugo & Cat has been expanding its presence in New York and is working on digital transformation projects with major clients across real estate, food services, ecommerce and healthcare in the US market. The London team has grown to meet increasing demand for experience design, data insight and consulting.

Celerity uses data and insights to maximise marketing technology investment and accelerate business growth. It provides consulting, implementation and managed service solutions for digital marketing and data. It works with leading brands including Nissan, Paco Rabanne and William Hill and combines data and technology to achieve more profitable customer relationships.

The agency’s unique position in the market lies in its data heritage and marketing cloud technical skills, particularly with Adobe and Salesforce. It also has the ability to scale and be agile and flexible.

“We passionately believe the future belongs to brands that can move quickly, and agencies need to be more agile and flexible to support them to do so,” Celerity says. “We are also passionate about the use of data to drive ROI and are continually measuring and reporting against KPIs.”

Celerity won large contracts with William Hill Group and Pizza Hut Delivery in the past 12 months, as well as new projects with Nissan globally. It also hired a new COO from AKQA, Bill McGeorge.

Fee income: £8,240,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2004

Owner: Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc (IPG)

UK head: Claudine Allen, Operations Director

Contact: Johannes Smith, Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 375 0909

Business split: 3% CRM, 25% Creative, 10% Ecommerce, 2% Managed Services, 10% Marketing, 3% SEO, 2% Social, 20% Technical Development, 25% User Experience

Website: hugoandcat.com

Fee income: £8,130,438 (<09/17)

Year founded: 2003

Owner: Independent

UK head: Bill McGeorge, COO

Contact: Bill McGeorge, COO, [email protected], +44 (0) 746 915 0087

Business split: 30% CRM, 5% Creative, 5% Managed Services, 10% Marketing, 45% Technical Development, 5% Software

Website: celerity-is.com

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AIA is a talent marketing company connecting organisations with people they want to hire and retain. Its creative brand storytelling, targeted digital distribution and meaningful metrics and insight is delivered through its core services in brand activation, candidate engagement and performance analytics.

At the heart of its offering is its unique technology platform, TalentBrew, which connects organisations’ employer brands with job seekers in a way that is personalised and meaningful throughout the whole candidate journey, with contextually relevant and connected messaging that enriches the candidate experience.

The decisions organisations make about talent and the decisions people make about work are consequential. Organisational effectiveness and personal happiness are impacted by these choices. AIA combines creativity and technology to tell the story of work, help organisations find the right talent and help people find their best future.

Over the last 12 months AIA has been delighted to add BMW, Co-op, IKEA, and Jaguar Land Rover to its client base while retaining 100% of the clients using its TalentBrew recruitment marketing platform. It has also won industry awards with its clients at the RADs, NUEs and IACs.

Omobono has deep expertise in tackling the key challenges faced by global business brands. Its expertise lies in driving corporate brands forward in new markets and for new initiatives, in aligning the organisation’s people and platforms to deliver an outstanding customer, employee or candidate experience and in managing senior stakeholders.

Omobono is the creative and technology agency for global business brands. It works across the three areas which affect how an organisation is perceived and experienced: brand, people and technology platforms. By looking at the way these three connect it drives both cultural and commercial impact for its clients.

The agency believes that business is a force for good. Business brands drive over half the global economy but most business brands lack the recognition they deserve, it says. “Omobono set up in 2001 to champion them, to do outstanding work for business brands. They are still committed to it in 2018.”

Omobono has experienced major international growth in the last 12 months, tripling the size of its US office, including setting up a dedicated team to help its biggest clients close multimillion dollar bids. Its Dubai office has doubled in size and now has an annex in Saudi Arabia.

Fee income: £8,069,432 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1986

Owner: TMP Worldwide

UK head: Gareth Edwards, Executive Vice President - Europe

Contact: Kathryn Kempster, Regional Vice President, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 993 1300


Website: aia.co.uk

Fee income: £8,016,257 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2001

Owner: Independent

UK head: Sarah Pettinger, Chief Operations Officer

Contact: Ellie Jones, Business Development Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 430 1557

Business split: 4% CRM, 68% Creative, 1% Marketing, 3% Social, 19% Technical Development, 5% User Experience

Website: omobono.com

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Greenlight Digital is an award-winning digital and commerce agency that designs, builds, consults, trains and implements transformational strategies across: paid search and shopping, programmatic display, SEO, content marketing, digital PR, creative, site design and build, analytics, ecommerce systems integration, conversion rate optimisation, user experience, affiliate marketing, and data and audience insights.

Its nimble approach to digital allows it to be the full-service agency that bridges the gap between consultancies and networks, the agency says. Its data-led and audience-focused approach has enabled it to create daring, award-winning work for 17 years. It says it is the agency that marries data with creativity, backed by bulletproof technology.

“We exist to truly make a difference to our clients by emphasising excellence and developing daring, data-led digital strategies,” Greenlight Digital says. “Through our audience-driven approach and focus on technology and innovation, we strive to deliver true value while also taking the time to know and understand the brands we work with.”

In the last 12 months, the agency has received 25 award nominations and wins, spoken at events such as Festival of Marketing, Marketing Week Live and PerformanceIN Live and has completed an ambitious rebrand to cement its position in the market. Andreas Pouros, CEO, appointed Matt Garbutt as Creative Director and appointed Katrina Butler as CFO.

Search Laboratory is an integrated digital agency with more than 140 staff across offices in Leeds, London and New York. Search Laboratory helps clients maximise profit from their websites through search, social and display campaigns in more than 25 languages, underpinned by strategy, analytics and data science.

Search Laboratory is an official Google Analytics 360 Reseller, having been accredited by Google to sell, implement and provide ongoing support for the premium analytics software. This, coupled with its digital strategy team, allows Search Laboratory to effectively manage large international digital campaigns that work together to produce profitable results.

The agency cares deeply about attribution and being able to give its clients a true picture of their digital marketing ROI. With a scientific ethos at the heart of Search Laboratory, being able to back up recommendations with data is key to the success of its clients’ campaigns.

Search Laboratory was honoured to receive the accolade of Best Large PPC Agency at the US Search Awards this year, having doubled the size of the US team.

Fee income: £7,737,000 (<08/17)

Year founded: 2001

Owner: Independent

UK head: Andreas Pouros, CEO

Contact: Katrina Makins, Head of Marketing, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 253 7000

Business split: 5% Creative, 10% Ecommerce, 30% Media Planning, 40% SEO, 10% Social, 5% User Experience

Website: greenlightdigital.com

Fee income: £7,727,939 (<10/17)

Year founded: 2005

Owner: Independent

UK head: Ian Harris, CEO

Contact: Chris Attewell, Global Sales Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 113 212 1211

Business split: 35% Marketing, 60% SEO, 5% Social

Website: searchlaboratory.com

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Orange Bus’ expertise lies in digital strategy and consultancy, service design, design and build, user research, UX testing and optimisation.

The agency helps global organisations, brands and governments deliver authentic, profitable and engaging user interactions to transform their customers’ digital experiences.

It cares deeply about putting users at the heart of its solutions and creating products and services that are informed from true user insight, research and validated testing.

In the last 12 months, Orange Bus secured a large contract to transform BBC Audience Services websites and renewed its contract with HMRC as agile delivery partner in Newcastle and Shiplet. It is F1 team Force India’s digital partner.

Ayima is an award-winning Digital Marketing Agency specialising in SEO, PPC, paid social, programmatic display, content marketing and design and development. With offices in London, New York, San Francisco, Raleigh, Vancouver and Stockholm, Ayima’s team continues to achieve spectacular results for some of the world’s biggest brands.

The agency’s staff are truly proactive and passionate about developing Ayima’s own in-house tools. Creating and focusing artificial intelligence and machine learning efforts to develop strategies across its services allows Ayima to uncover new insights and, ultimately, optimise its digital marketing activity.

“At Ayima, our main drivers are collaboration, innovation and passion,” the agency says. “Our tools, technical solutions and data insight, teamed with our creativity, make us who we are. Put simply, we care about doing our best and building strong relationships with our clients to deliver exceptional results.”

Ayima continues to grow all elements of the business year on year. In the past 12 months, it has opened a third US office, added CRO and performance analytics to its service offering and continues to develop its own proprietary tools. Revenue also increased YoY and continues to do so.

Fee income: £7,282,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2007

Owner: Capita plc

UK head: Kris Kennedy, COO

Contact: Kris Kennedy, COO, [email protected], +44 (0) 191 241 3703

Business split: 3% Creative, 11% Managed Services, 0% Marketing, 24% Technical Development, 62% User Experience

Website: orangebus.co.uk

Fee income: £7,251,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2007

Owner: Ayima Group AB

UK head: Nicky Applegarth, Managing Director

Contact: Nicky Applegarth, Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 148 5970

Business split: 10% Creative, 13% Media Planning, 77% SEO

Website: ayima.com

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Think is a digital agency with consultancy at its core. It works with clients like Vue, Liverpool Victoria, Adecco, Very and Liverpool FC to help them define their future opportunity, and design and build award-winning digital products and services that enable them to take the future into their own hands.

For Think, a successful client relationship is one where the business is no longer reliant on the agency. That is why its consulting, design and delivery methods have been created with collaboration at their heart. Think takes clients on a journey that truly builds their own teams’ independence and in-house capability.

“The next ten years will bring incredible technological change,” Think says. “To embrace this exciting future, we need broader and deeper expertise, even greater diversity in mindsets and skills that don’t exist yet. That’s why we believe in fierce collaboration… with our ambitious clients and our network of specialists, pioneers and inventors.”

In the last 12 months, the agency launched Think Live, a practice in Liverpool dedicated to unlocking efficiencies and value from clients’ current digital estates. As well as optimisation and support, the agency collaborates with client teams to develop processes and in-house capability that enable organisational change and international growth.

Stink Studios is a global creative studio. It solves its clients’ business problems by fusing creativity, innovation, strategy and craft.

The agency is one of the world’s leading independent creative companies working at a global scale.

Stink Studios cares deeply about making a meaningful impact on its clients’ business, using smart design, intuitive technology, and purposeful content.

It was recently voted by Campaign magazine as a Top 50 place to work. In the past 12 months, it has continued to build strong direct-to-brand relationships, with a healthy blend of repeat business and new engagements. Its work continues to be recognised by Industry awards, and as a top destination for talent.

Fee income: £7,244,500 (<10/17)

Year founded: 2004

Owner: Independent

UK head: Natalie Gross, Managing Partner

Contact: Victoria Morrison, Marketing & New Business Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 504 6000

Business split: 15% Creative, 10% Managed Services, 25% Marketing, 5% Social, 30% Technical Development, 15% User Experience

Website: wearethink.com

Fee income: £7,182,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2009

Owner: Independent

UK head: James Britton, Global Managing Director

Contact: James Britton, Global Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 780 861 2542

Business split: 30% Creative, 30% Marketing, 5% Social, 15% Technical Development, 5% User Experience

Website: stinkstudios.com

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Cheil UK

Cheil UK is a full-service agency that helps redefine the ways people connect with brands through data-driven creativity. Its agency model has data-driven customer experience at its heart, offering clients a single strategic partnership that delivers services across the entire consumer decision journey.

Its expertise includes: strategy, data and insights, retail innovation and commerce (including ecommerce), events and experiential, social and content, personalisation through digital platforms and new technologies.

The agency’s services include customer intelligence (a new centralised analytics, insight and planning division based in London and Bucharest that analyses web, retail and mobile behavioural data), consumer and retail innovation and planning, out-of-home advertising, TV, social and content, events and experiential, and personalisation and contextualisation through digital platforms and partnerships like Adobe.

As part of its mission to help its clients and the industry adapt to new advertising models and technologies, it set up a new initiative called DRIVE. Cheil’s first DRIVE session on voice and AI was created entirely by Alexa.

The agency’s 40+ year relationship with Samsung has given it the ability to deliver creative solutions by combining technology and data for all its clients. Its UK office has a tech department that works with the agency’s data and insights team to identify where new technologies can be best placed within a customer journey.

Cheil UK cares deeply about culture: “Without a good culture we won’t attract and maintain the levels of talent we have and need,” the agency says. “It’s not always easy being part of such a fast moving and demanding client base, so ensuring our teams are fully supported is very important.”

In the past 12 months, the agency has won NIVEA and Beirsdorf Northern Europe Digital and is also working on digital projects for Global.

Cheil includes 53 offices and more than 6,000 people worldwide. It connects people to leading brands including Samsung, Beiersdorf, General Motors, Lufthansa and Absolut.

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Fee income: £7,141,959 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1989

Owner: Cheil Worldwide

UK head: Peter Zillig, CEO

Contact: Victoria Sinclair, Client Engagement Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 593 9300


Website: cheil.uk

Code Computerlove helps brands and businesses to get the most out of their digital products by taking a ‘Product Thinking’ approach. The agency creates digital products that best meet the business challenges they’re trying to solve, continually improves them and it helps businesses go faster in their digital transformation.

As an established agency, Code Computerlove has created its own approach to supporting brands in their digital development and transformation. It focuses on outcomes and value, not a set cost project fee ticking off a list of deliverables.

The agency cares about digital effectiveness and the value of outcomes, delivered through: doing the right thing; doing the thing right; and doing it efficiently – removing the silos of an organisation for speed and effectiveness. It also cares about aligning the entire culture towards shared goals and metrics, and autonomy in teams.

The agency has been working with sister agency MediaCom North to offer an end-to-end service. Its focus has been on performance and helping clients achieve brilliant work.

The expertise of Maginus lies in its ability to realise a concept, however big or small, and taking acute attention in understanding the needs of a client. Maginus is able to drive a project with clarity and purpose, fully utilising the exceptional skillset of its team to deliver brilliant projects.

The team has more than 20 years’ experience in the B2B and B2C ecommerce markets. It has worked with a wide range of online businesses and has played a major part in delivering designs that not only look good, but make a demonstrable difference to the client’s bottom line.

Every single piece of coding and design that the team engineers make is created to ensure that the agency’s customers have a platform that does what it needs to, when it needs to, with unyielding excellence, the agency says. “We want to implement platforms of distinction, to create partnerships and collaborations that last,” it adds.

In the past 12 months, Maginus added the Magento ecommerce platform to its portfolio to satisfy a requirement within its customer base for a mid-market solution. It also won the Episerver Commerce Partner of the Year award for achieving impressive business results and its ability to meet customers’ ecommerce needs.

Fee income: £7,000,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1999

Owner: MediaCom

UK head: Tony Foggett, CEO

Contact: Steve Peters, Business Development, [email protected], +44 (0) 161 276 2080

Business split: 20% Creative, 5% Ecommerce, 10% Marketing, 7% SEO, 3% Social, 40% Technical Development, 15% User Experience

Website: codecomputerlove.com

Fee income: £6,982,000 (<07/17)

Year founded: 2000

Owner: Independent

UK head: Simon Weeks, CEO

Contact: Janice Mawhinney, Marketing Executive, [email protected], +44 (0) 161 946 0000

Business split: 15% CRM, 10% Creative, 30% Ecommerce, 10% Managed Services, 25% Technical Development, 10% Software

Website: maginus.com

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NMPi’s extensive experience in digital media expands across paid search – including award-winning solutions for Google Shopping – display, paid social and analytics, with both traditional agency and performance solutions. Having worked across a wide range of industries including retail, entertainment and travel, it offers its clients rich data and valuable insights.

With its acquisition of creative agency Joystick and its work with technology experts, DQ&A, it is able to integrate media, technology and creative to deliver high quality and engaging end-to-end customer experiences, breaking down the silos that often hinder advertising success.

“We are passionate about helping ambitious brands grow and realise their full potential,” the agency says. “It is our belief that the perfect blend of technology, data and artistry makes every execution smarter, more dynamic and more effective.”

This year, NMPi announced the acquisition of creative specialist, Joystick, and paid social specialist, MediaPact. This follows its 2017 global expansion which concluded with the launch of two new offices in the US last November. Its recent acquisitions have only served to strengthen its international presence and localised expertise.

Tangent is an independent customer experience studio with offices in London and Newcastle. It helps its clients navigate the digital landscape and better serve their customers. The agency has three core pillars of service: customer journey insight and strategy; lean digital product design and development; and data intelligence and optimisation.

The agency understands its clients’ customers’ behaviours, wants, needs, likes, frustrations and fears when using the services and products they provide. It prototypes and tests new design and tech solutions so that its clients can be confident they will work, which lowers risk.

Tangent cares deeply about having an impact on its clients’ businesses and improving the customer experience.

In the past 12 months, it won a number of new clients including UK Power Networks, Freesat and Missfits Nutrition. It also moved into new offices in Newcastle’s city centre.

Fee income: £6,842,887 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2004

Owner: incuBeta Group

UK head: Luke Judge, CEO

Contact: Andrew Turner, Commercial Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 186 2110

Business split: 96% Media Planning, 4% Software

Website: nmpidigital.com

Fee income: £6,770,338 (<03/18)

Year founded: 2001

Owner: Independent

UK head: Oliver Green, Managing Partner

Contact: Oli Green, Managing Partner, [email protected], +44 (0) 751 590 8482

Business split: 20% CRM, 25% Creative, 10% Managed Services, 20% Technical Development, 25% User Experience

Website: tangent.co.uk

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Edit offers CRM and media, underpinned by brilliant technology and data science. It helps its clients keep their best customers; grow more customers into best customers; and get new best customers, wherever they are. Through the intelligent application of data, it can make this efficient – and prove it.

Merging two CRM-focused agencies with a digital agency and a media agency uniquely positions Edit to process and activate data safely and effectively on a huge scale. Edit focuses on turning data into people and helping its clients put that customer at the heart of all marketing and advertising.

Edit believes that marketing is about consistent messaging and joined up insights from acquisition to advocacy, but that is not easy in the face of overwhelming channel choice and complexity. “We Edit out the noise to help our clients have one conversation with their customers at an individual level,” it says.

St Ives’ data agencies Response One, Amaze One and Occam merged with digital agency Branded3 to form Edit in 2018, moving 150 staff into a new HQ in Bath (retaining 70 more in Leeds and London). Edit’s SearchLeeds event became the biggest digital event in the north, with 1,500 attendees.

Vaimo started its UK operations in 2012 but is globally celebrating its ten-year anniversary as operations started in Sweden in 2008. Having grown to a global omnichannel provider working across 12 different countries, its offering and expertise include ecommerce strategy, design, development, cloud services, optimisation and product information management.

With an international presence through 16 offices in 12 countries and a full service offering in the omnichannel space, the agency has local relationships with global knowledge, with more than 400 launched sites launched to date.

Vaimo cares about establishing long-term relationships and driving success in digital commerce for its clients. “We care about our employees as they are key to success and deliver our work through our core values: excellence, teamwork, openness and fun,” it says.

In 2017, Vaimo opened a new office in Belgium to cater for the existing Benelux market and increased its offering further by acquiring an agency specialising in product information management to open its own PIM department.

Fee income: £6,719,689 (<07/17)

Year founded: 2018

Owner: St Ives plc

UK head: Damian Coverdale, CEO

Contact: Charlie Harris, Group Head of Marketing, [email protected], +44 (0) 738 702 3831

Business split: 15% CRM, 10% Creative, 5% Managed Services, 10% Marketing, 20% Media Planning, 15% SEO, 20% Technical Development, 5% Software

Website: edit.co.uk

Fee income: £6,588,528 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2012

Owner: Vaimo AB

UK head: Steve Dashwood, Country Manager UK & Ireland

Contact: Emilia Swiecicka, Marketing Coordinator, [email protected], +44 (0) 738 917 9814

Business split: 5% Creative, 70% Ecommerce, 10% Managed Services, 5% SEO, 5% Technical Development, 5% User Experience

Website: vaimo.co.uk

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ORM’s expertise is in digital business transformation, technology consultancy and the design and build of digital products and services. It provides managed services including technical support, continuous improvement and performance optimisation.

The agency helps organisations create and own their digital future. It works with its clients to define their vision and a digital roadmap for change. ORM then executes the plan with the delivery of new products and services through data, content, experience design and connected technology.

ORM is passionate about how new technologies are forcing businesses to change and transform. “With the right digital vision strategies in place, we are supporting organisations to make it easier for them to do business with their customers,” it says.

This year, ORM created a game-changing retail platform for Arriva UK Trains and Bus – a programme rollout across their brands with expansions into Europe, empowering them to own their digital future. It has also grown in this last year and recently moved to a new location in London’s West End.

W12 Studios translates business challenges into visionary brand strategies and innovative digital product design for global clients across the UK and Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. It delivers impact for their clients, setting design and UI benchmarks for the industry, and inspires exceptional work from its 40-strong team.

The studio’s core capabilities span the full digital service journey, from brand development, innovative product strategy, visionary design, and go-to-market support. It delivers innovative, actionable designs with speed and agility. Its designers, strategists and technologists work directly with the client, delivering results in real time and on budget.

W12 Studios is passionate about making a difference to the wider world. It also says it cares about designing products and experiences that connect brand, strategy and product, reaching millions of people globally. Not afraid to challenge the status quo, it believes that “together we are stronger” and practices a collaborative approach to design.

This year, the studio relocates to a new owned office space. The move signifies an investment in the future of W12 Studios and ongoing commitment to its clients. In the last 12 months it has received a Red Dot Design Award for Vodafone, the F1 Connectivity Prize and an Excellence in Design from Verizon.

Fee income: £6,575,353 (<09/17)

Year founded: 1999

Owner: Independent

UK head: Bill McGeorge, Group Operations Director

Contact: Peter Gough, Managing Partner & Founder, [email protected], +44 (0) 208 239 5080

Business split: 5% CRM, 10% Creative, 25% Ecommerce, 10% Managed Services, 5% SEO, 25% Technical Development, 20% User Experience

Website: ormlondon.com

Fee income: £6,560,000 (<05/18)

Year founded: 2012

Owner: Independent

UK head: Fabian Birgfeld, CEO and Co-Founder

Contact: Lucie Dutton, Business Development Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 781 774 6254

Business split: 50% Creative, 50% User Experience

Website: w12studios.com

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Nomensa is an independent strategic UX design agency that combines expertise in psychology, user-centred design and accessibility to transform digital experiences. Humans are at the heart of every endeavour, working alongside the agency’s clients to generate sustainable and powerful technology creations that drive commercial with customer experience at the core.

Now one of Europe’s leading UX agencies operating internationally across London, Bristol and Amsterdam, Nomensa blends state-of-the-art thinking, innovation and creativity to build experiences that delight and engage. Nomensa’s more than 100-strong team is made up of some of the most talented minds in the industry.

‘Humanising Technology’ is Nomensa’s founding and guiding principle. By capitalising on psychology to drive designs and shape strategies, Nomensa creates meaningful digital experiences that are moulded around those who truly matter: the users. This human-heavy purpose is present in its collaborative internal management style, UX events and partnerships with clients.

Employee fulfilment and cross-sector collaboration are better signifiers of success than just tangibles or financial stats. However, 2018 has been quite a year; its employee count surpassed 100, UX events Collaborate and Interact are on the horizon, while co-chair of WCAG and Nomensa founder Alastair Campbell co-authored the newly-released WCAG-2.1.

Friday work at the core of their clients’ businesses, improving the customer experience where it matters most, and where digital development can deliver the most value.

Clients partner with them to re-imagine and design their customer experience, improve the technology that powers it and develop capabilities to better manage it.

The agency’s clients are mostly senior customer-proposition owners in high-touch service organisations that need to keep pace with customer expectation while dealing with legacy.

Friday believes in the internet as a force for good. Friday says: “It creates transparency and meritocracy, and places power, knowledge and agency into the hands of people, encouraging organisations to be useful and relevant. Bringing digital into the core of businesses re-orients them around the customer, which creates value for society.”

Friday has been growing over the past 12 months. It moved into new offices on Farringdon Road and started working with a raft of new clients including Jackson Hewitt, ERM, Anglia Ruskin and BMI. It has also sharpened its proposition – Core Business Digital – and launched a new website: www.wearefriday.com.

Fee income: £6,463,362 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2001

Owner: Independent

UK head: Sally Lincoln, Managing Director

Contact: Sally Lincoln, Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 117 929 7333

Business split: 18% Creative, 2% Managed Services, 80% User Experience

Website: nomensa.com

Fee income: £6,431,695 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2009

Owner: Independent

UK head: Chris Walker, Chief Operating Officer

Contact: Corinne Powers, Business Development Manager, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 217 7950

Business split: 5% CRM, 30% Creative, 5% Ecommerce, 30% Technical Development, 30% User Experience

Website: wearefriday.com

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Tryzens specialises in helping retailers and brands optimise sales online. Whether new to ecommerce or already trading online, Tryzens offers independent, authoritative, expert advice with design and technical delivery services that enable clients to enhance their business results across all trading channels through exceptional customer experience and high-performing ecommerce systems.

The agency lives ecommerce, employing unique dedicated teams of user experience, design, technical integration and CRO specialists, who are passionate about online. Tryzens’ senior team, which includes former retailers, has a deep understanding of the online challenges faced by retailers and brands. Tryzens provides actionable insights to help clients grow their businesses.

“Tryzens cares about its clients’ success,” says the agency. “Whether re-platforming or helping retailers improve specific business KPIs, Tryzens’ goal is to optimise the outcome for their clients ensuring investment is against clear shared targets. This results-focused approach drives double-digit growth; client Joseph Joseph for example grew mobile transactions by 71%.”

Focus on customer satisfaction and delivery quality is paramount, with Tryzens named Salesforce Commerce Cloud Delivery Partner of the Year 2017, achieving Gold Consulting Partner status and Magento Professional Solution Partner. This commitment to quality and success has powered Tryzens significant growth to its client base in the last year.

Dare is an experience, design and technology company. Dare balances human behaviour, the customer experience and how we can use technology to ensure its clients realise their commercial ambition.

The agency’s unique Dare Inside model places bespoke teams at the heart of its clients’ business. It operates inside its clients’ worlds to create long-term business value and efficiencies.

Dare cares deeply about being human. In its agency, in the way it works, in its solutions.

In the past 12 months, Dare has grown its digital base by 13%, won significant digital transformation work from Wesleyan, BMW and Aetna and continued to deliver for Nike, Vision Express and Barclays. Dare has bolstered its senior leadership team with hires of Caroline Sparkes, Managing Partner and Ben Long, Creative Director.

Fee income: £6,416,000 (<03/18)

Year founded: 2004

Owner: Independent

UK head: Andy Burton, CEO

Contact: Paul Green, Sales Director UK&I, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 264 5900

Business split: 10% Creative, 80% Ecommerce, 10% Managed Services

Website: tryzens.com

Fee income: £6,400,000 (<06/17)

Year founded: 2000

Owner: Inside Ideas Group

UK head: Michael Olaye, Chief Executive Officer

Contact: Caroline Sparkes, Managing Partner, caroline.sparkes@thisisdare,com, +44 (0) 203 142 3508


Website: thisisdare.com

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CDS is a multi-award-winning communications company with market leading technical capability. It is trusted to deliver and support business-critical solutions to both private and public sectors, used by millions of people every day.

In a digitally transforming world, CDS is changing the way government talks to citizens, employers to employees, authorities to their communities and businesses to their customers.

“We transform communications, change behaviours and make a positive difference,” says CDS. “We offer a broad range of on and offline services. These are designed to help clients communicate and engage more effectively with their customers and staff. We provide the solutions that help clients design, implement and deliver their digital roadmap.”

In the last 12 months, CDS won six awards, and was recently named winner of the ideasUK competition for Idea of the Year. It also won Best Large Digital Agency at the Prolific North Awards; the first of several awards for work delivered to clients, including Metropolitan Police, Cabinet Office, Royal Mail, South West Water and British Army.

Great State is a new agency, which formed in 2018 following a merger between digital agency e3 and strategy consultancy London Strategy Unit. Great State is a new breed of agency: a brand technology agency combining business and brand strategy, digital product and service innovation, and enterprise technology services under one roof.

Great State helps its clients stay relevant. Staying relevant is today’s biggest business challenge. Driven by rapid changes in technology and fierce competition in every sector, consumers have higher expectations than ever before. Great State helps businesses to transform themselves in response to these ever-higher expectations.

“At Great State, we believe in the positive impact technology can have for both brands and consumers,” the agency says. “We believe that brands stay relevant by offering experiences that continue to consistently delight their users. Great State uses technology in new and innovative ways to enable our clients to do this.”

Launching in 2018 has made for a busy few months. There have been major new client wins such as Deliveroo and Barclays, significant existing client growth including Honda Europe and innovative AI work for Arthritis UK using IBM Watson. The first of its own digital products, Okey Dokey, also launched to the market.

Fee income: £6,293,343 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1994

Owner: The Baird Group

UK head: Fergus Bailie, Chief Executive

Contact: Paul Meersman, Head of Marketing, [email protected], +44 (0) 113 399 4000

Business split: 10% CRM, 10% Creative, 5% Ecommerce, 10% Managed Services, 5% Marketing, 5% SEO, 5% Social, 40% Technical Development, 5% User Experience, 5% Software

Website: cds.co.uk

Fee income: £5,830,846 (<03/18)

Year founded: 1997

Owner: Independent

UK head: Nairn Robertson, Operations Director

Contact: Neil Collard, Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 008 4411


Website: greatstate.co

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Answer Digital Limited

Answer Digital provides software engineering and technical consultancy to the retail, health and financial services sectors. It provides end-to-end research, design and technical delivery services. Answer employs more than 60 substantive techies from junior and graduate up to senior and principal consultants.

The agency’s proposition spans multiple sectors; it combines health, finance, retail and payments domain expertise with 18 years working in the technology industry. Its people, culture and values are at the heart of every single engagement.

Founded in 1999, Answer Digital’s expertise lies its ability to collaborate with customers to develop their own in-house digital capabilities while delivering large-scale digital transformation projects.

Answer Digital has developed customer-centric delivery practices using a collaborative and agile methodology called TIDE. In addition to technical project delivery, it uses its unique delivery practices to equip customers’ in-house teams with the skills and processes to help them continue their digital transformation aspirations on an ongoing basis.

It has worked with the NHS to shape the future vision of national healthcare systems, introducing new systems which enable clinicians to access accurate and pertinent health data in real time to save lives.

Supporting the finance industry platform giant Bravura, Answer led and delivered the web development programme for Nucleus. This undertaking was a major success and years later the agency is proud to be associated with the Nucleus story and helping a startup grow to a value of £140m.

In retail, Answer has worked with Costcutter Supermarkets Group since 2012, collaborating with its IT and business functions to deliver bespoke retail management and retailer order capture systems.

In payments, it is helping define and implement payment strategies and is actively involved in industry initiatives around Open Banking and Real Time payments.

The growth and development of leading digital talent is Answer Digital’s underlying mission.

In August 2017, Answer Digital was recognised in Public’s The State of the UK GovTech Market report as one of the Top 10 fastest growing companies and as revolutionising user experience in the health and social care market.

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Fee income: £5,604,617 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1999

Owner: Independent

UK head: Gary Parlett, Managing Director

Contact: Gary Parlett, Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 113 201 0600

Business split: 20% Ecommerce, 1% Managed Services, 75% Technical Development, 4% User Experience

Website: answerdigital.com

Threepipe

Threepipe is a performance marketing agency that runs acquisition and branding strategies across channels for some of the best known and fastest growing retailers.

The agency has created integrated client teams across search, display and social so that clients have one point of contact across their campaigns and not multiple client teams working in isolation.

“Data and insight powers everything that we do,” says Threepipe. “We are constantly testing and improving our campaign strategies to deliver incremental performance benefits.”

The agency has developed a lot of its own IP this year to improve client reporting and campaign management and drive improved accuracy and efficiency. It has also acquired a creative agency to further improve its content capability across channels.

2018 was the biggest year yet for Threepipe as it added new 30 people to bring its total to 100, moved offices and won some of the biggest media pitches in town. The agency invested in its own technology to build out four new software programmes to improve campaign management and client reporting efficiency to free up time for more strategic thinking.

Internal teams were reorganised to create client-focused teams, rather than to spread the integrated work across multiple teams, as well as to give clients one point of contact and a more holistic view of their campaigns.

Threepipe acquired the creative agency Earnie to boost the its content and branding capability across performance and brand channels, which has already led to some impressive campaigns for the likes of Oracle and Panasonic.

Threepipe was picked as the media agency for the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup and won business from brands including Oracle, Warehouse, Soho Home and Jet Airways. The agency also picked up a number of high-profile awards for its integrated campaigns for the England and Wales Cricket Board, for which it is the lead digital agency.

Fee income: £5,260,000 (<03/18)

Year founded: 2004

Owner: Independent

UK head: Farhad Koodoruth, Managing Director

Contact: Jim Hawker, Co-Founder, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 632 4800

Business split: 20% Creative, 5% Ecommerce, 15% Managed Services, 30% Media Planning, 20% SEO, 10% Social

Website: threepipe.co.uk

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Beyond

Beyond is a design, technology, and ideas company. It creates solutions through design, experiences, and digital products. It works with ambitious brands to build technology-led products and strategies, and prepares businesses for the pace of a digital world.

Beyond designs for people while analysing the business and ecosystem the product will exist in, creating solutions that fit into current processes, thrive and drive value. Its size enables it to work alongside teammates and clients, embedding itself into the work, share early and often and test ideas without systemic blockers.

“As an agency overall, we care immensely about our people and creating an environment that fosters the very best creativity,” says Beyond. “This in turn allows us to create the best and most valuable digital experiences for the brands that we work with.”

Over the past year, Beyond has experienced a period of exciting and rapid growth. It has developed new products and services for clients including Google, Just Eat, Warner Bros, Facebook, Samsung, Novartis, Virgin and Gap, significantly growing its partnerships with these brands.

It strengthened the team with the addition of new CCO Karyn Pascoe and an expanded creative division, with the appointment of Apple veteran and product marketing visionary Judy Gibbons as chair, as well as the hires of CTO Jenai Marinkovic, CMO Francesca Kimball, and CFO Randy Rubino.

Beyond’s HR department has received industry recognition for creating a model diverse and agile work environment. The agency opened its fourth office in Austin, TX to support that city’s burgeoning design and technology community.

Beyond takes special pride in the co-creation and launch of Flipside, a London-based programme focused on finding, recruiting and training young people from various socio-economic backgrounds. Created in tandem with several government organisations, including the Mayor of London’s office and six other prominent studios, Flipside prepares young and diverse talent for work in the digital sector through a 12-week experiential training programme. Flipside has exceeded initial goals, and Beyond has so far successfully hired two Flipside graduates to work in its design and content departments.

Fee income: £5,186,503 (<01/18)

Year founded: 2010

Owner: Next 15 Communications Group plc

UK head: Kate Rand, Director, People

Contact: Charlie Lyons, General Manager, [email protected], +44 (0)20 7908 6555


Website: bynd.com

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Pulse is a data-driven full-service marketing agency for B2B technology brands. Data sits at the heart of the business. It powers the agency’s insights across all work, honing its approach across everything it does. It combines this intelligence with creativity and expert programme activation to solve clients’ marketing challenges.

The agency is a market leader in end-to-end account-based marketing and integrated digital programme delivery for tech businesses. Strategy and planning, creative and content and omni-channel activation all operate in unison, under one agency roof. All as one company.

“Pulse exists to elevate the quality and performance of marketing within B2B technology businesses,” it says.

In 2017, the agency doubled its staff levels and grew 90% in billings.

Affinity specialises in design and development of ecommerce sites and has particular expertise in the Magento platform in Community, Magento 2 and Magento Enterprise versions. The Affinity Insights team consequently look after many of the agency’s ecommerce clients, undertaking conversion rate optimisation and UX contracts specifically allied to Magento installations.

It uses client retention as an accurate yardstick against which to measure success and knows it is doing things right because it retains clients. On the rare occasion when a client does swap provider, it more often than not sees them return a few months later.

Affinity invests heavily in its client services team to deliver outstanding customer service 24/7/365. “We have found that by making sure client expectations are exceeded that project management benefits enormously – our passion for delivering a high-quality service is linked to our bottom line,” it says.

Affinity’s clients are increasingly looking for new ways to achieve year-on-year growth outside of the normal search disciplines. This tends to manifest itself in the agency providing deep-dive data insights which in turn informs both UX and CRO activity to achieve client objectives.

Fee income: £5,130,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2013

Owner: Independent

UK head: Chris Bagnall, Managing Director

Contact: Chris Bagnall, Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 796 818 2315

Business split: 10% Creative, 34% Marketing, 48% Media Planning, 8% Social

Website: pulsecomms.com

Fee income: £4,977,426 (<05/18)

Year founded: 1986

Owner: Affinity Group Holdings

UK head: Karl Izzard, Head of Digital

Contact: Max Edwards, Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 160 366 3093

Business split: 5% CRM, 5% Creative, 30% Ecommerce, 5% Managed Services, 5% Marketing, 10% Media Planning, 10% SEO, 20% Technical Development, 10% User Experience

Website: affinityagency.co.uk

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Kagool is a full-service digital agency. It does digital strategy, design, build, UX, IA and digital marketing. Kagool specialises in Sitecore’s customer experience platform and is one of only 10 UK Sitecore Platinum Partners. It is also the only UK agency to have six staff named Sitecore MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals) for 2018.

The agency is one of a select few Sitecore Platinum Partners in the UK and the only Platinum Partner to focus solely on Sitecore. This allows the agency to concentrate its skills. Because of this, it now has more than 250 Sitecore projects under its belts for UK, European and global clients.

Kagool cares deeply about making the agency a great workplace, where staff can hone existing skills and learn new ones. It also cares about providing value and exceptional service to clients. “Kagool gets a kick out of taking complex problems and finding simple human answers,” it says. “Kagool’s brand values are to be witty, proud, challenging, smart, reliable and human.”

In the past 12 months, the agency won new business from Inchcape, Telligent, Biffa, Smith and Williamson and Scenic Waterways. Kagool, which has been traditionally known as a technical development company, has also grown its digital marketing and search services from nothing to £750,000.

Metia’s people are experts at understanding its clients’ audiences. They speak their language. The agency understands their motivations and decision-making processes. Its clients are often global. Metia supports them worldwide, having deployed campaigns in 88 countries and 39 languages in the last two years.

The agency connects insight, content and demand generation methodologies for specific audiences, using its unique Content Resonance System and Performance Benchmark Index technology to provide a data-driven approach and create high-performing customer engagement campaigns.

Metia cares deeply about understanding everything about its clients’ customers. “Our goal is to provide customer-focused marketing that is authentic, innovative and measurable,” it says. “We use data to create customer insight, inform strategies and measure performance. We measure everything, ignore vanity metrics and pay attention to the numbers that matter the most.”

In the past 12 months, Metia won the BMW Innovation Lab programme, demonstrating that its expertise, skills and systems – largely developed for tech and digital native businesses – are now relevant to many mainstream brands as they seek to redefine and transform themselves to prosper in a digital age.

Fee income: £4,879,021 (<03/18)

Year founded: 1999

Owner: Independent

UK head: Dan Berry, Managing Director

Contact: Craig Johnson, Manchester Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 161 210 2424


Website: bekagool.com

Fee income: £4,841,798 (<09/17)

Year founded: 1990

Owner: Metia Group Ltd

UK head: Steve Ellis, Founder

Contact: Steve Ellis, Founder, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 100 3500

Business split: 10% CRM, 10% Creative, 20% Ecommerce, 20% Marketing, 10% Media Planning, 10% Social, 10% Technical Development, 10% User Experience

Website: metia.com

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Click Consult is a specialist search marketing agency with a focus on organic search and paid search. The agency also provides a range of other services, including content marketing, outreach, social media marketing and conversion rate optimisation, as well as international and multilingual search marketing.

Click Consult is positioned as a dedicated search marketing agency and its commitment to continually investing in research and development, combined with industry expertise and a drive to lead, places the agency in a unique position to deliver search marketing excellence for its client base.

“Click Consult believe that at the heart successful client-agency relationships is transparency through the setting of realistic expectations from the word go, along with clear, concise communication,” the agency says. “Unlike many agencies, Click are open about their methodologies and, rather than baffling with technical jargon, provide clients with open transparency.”

In the last 12 months, Click Consult was named both Search Agency of the Year at the Northern Digital Awards and Most Effective Agency 2018 at the Performance Marketing Awards, and won nine other awards. It grew and developed its service offering to include paid social, affiliate marketing, marketplaces, video production, training and in-house support. It also launched Benchmark Search Magazine and held a third annual conference. It saw multiple brand client wins.

ThirtyThree is a creative, full-service employer branding and marketing agency. With a global footprint, the company was founded to fundamentally transform the way organisations recruit, retain and help reward their people. Including their own.

This agency has a strong record of delivering award-winning, insights-driven work for its clients. As part of the Capita Group, it is able to leverage not only the knowledge and resources of the parent company, but also its digital insight and tech thinking to give customers complete, end-to-end solutions.

ThirtyThree cares deeply about finding innovative new ways to engage emotionally with candidates, harnessing the latest platforms to help them achieve their ambitions. It applies this approach to all clients big and small, making sure they get the same level of client service, creativity and quality thinking whoever they are.

Over the past year, the agency has brought in a number of new clients, such as the home improvement giant Kingfisher; a number of awards, such as a Webby nomination for National Grid; and a number of new and exciting people who all offer something different and exciting.

Fee income: £4,800,000 (<03/18)

Year founded: 2003

Owner: Independent

UK head: Matt Bullas, Founder & CEO

Contact: Anna Dunbar, Head of Business Development, [email protected], +44 (0) 845 205 0292

Business split: 13% Media Planning, 85% SEO, 1% Social, 1% Technical Development

Website: click.co.uk

Fee income: £4,796,135 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2008

Owner: Capita plc

UK head: Gavin Anderson, Group Managing Director

Contact: Martin Rimmer, Chief Creative Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 336 4533

Business split: 45% Creative, 26% Ecommerce, 2% Managed Services, 1% Marketing, 1% Media Planning, 1% SEO, 16% Social, 8% Technical Development

Website: thirtythree.co.uk

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Leighton creates exceptional solutions for big problems with its amazing team. It can develop and project manage complex IT transformation concepts, working from design to a fully tested solution. With 25 years’ experience, it understands the challenges of the changing tech landscape and will deliver on time and on budget.

The agency is highly established and skilled with an incredible team, history and client base. Digital is in its DNA, having been around for as long as the web. It works with the third most popular .com in the UK – British Airways – delivering exceptional service and solutions.

“We care deeply about our customers and making a real difference to them as organisations and as individuals,” the agency says. “We strive to improve. We love to innovate and listen. We care about the role digital transformation can play in the workplace and the lives of our customers – and our team,” it adds.

In the last 12 months, Leighton introduced a new leadership team, led by CEO James Bunting. He says that the agency has created new values, direction and energy with a view to creating success in the coming years. More than 30 people joined the team, he adds, to help the agency deliver its solutions.

Octopus Group has been working with B2B brands for 17 years. Six years ago, it became the Brand to Sales agency, offering full a service marketing and communications package to clients – through specialist demand generation, digital and creative teams – while keeping PR at the heart of what it does.

The agency’s trademarked Brand to Sales approach sets it apart. Octopus Group helps brands arrive at sales faster by bringing research, PR, social, content, creative services, digital and demand generation together into focused campaigns. Everything it does is delivered by one highly skilled team, under one roof.

“We want to help our clients win their markets through creative and strategic campaigns,” the agency says. “Whether the end goal is leads, awareness or insight, we provide the platform to hit targets and speed up sales cycles, all at the same time as making Octopus Group a fun, friendly place to work.”

2018 saw the introduction of Octopus Group’s Brand to Sales Academy, a unique training programme that will upskill staff on all elements of digital marketing. The agency was also recognised as one of PR Week’s Best Places to Work and celebrated milestone new business wins in Xerox PARC, Red Hat and Travelex.

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Fee income: £4,759,000 (<03/18)

Year founded: 1996

Owner: Independent

UK head: James Bunting, CEO

Contact: James Bunting, CEO, [email protected], +44 (0) 191 305 5140

Business split: 20% Creative, 20% Marketing, 40% Technical Development, 20% User Experience

Website: leighton.com

Fee income: £4,740,000 (<12/17)

Year founded: 2000

Owner: Independent

UK head: B Holden, Finance Director

Contact: Pete Hendrick, Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 772 8899

Business split: 25% Creative, 45% Marketing, 30% Social

Website: octopusgrp.com

Abacus helps brands and communities improve engagement and revenue with personalised digital experiences. Abacus’ core offerings are: Digital eXperience Platform SaaS (proprietary flexible CMS and CDP); customer insights bureau; and digital transformation consultancy (with cloud technology, UX, branding, data analytics and subscription marketing experts).

With more than 20 years of digital transformation experience, Abacus manages websites, digital content, gatekeeping and subscription bureaux for major organisations and also provides sophisticated single customer view, ecommerce and membership engagement solutions for a wide range of well-known brands and professional institutions.

Abacus cares about customer success, data, insight and engagement. “We care deeply about the business outcomes that our clients generate with our platforms and services: better conversions in registered users, increase in ad yield in native advertising and sponsored content sales, and subscription growth and renewal through insight-driven personalised web experiences,” it says.

The new Webvision Cloud platform enabled Abacus to achieve 30% ARR growth for SaaS/managed services in 2017 driving more consistent digital engagement campaigns for its clients. It also started a new programme of channel partner enablement to introduce its SaaS and services to new markets and geographies.

Dog solves marketing problems by blending technology, marketing and creative design expertise, bonded by a communications planning team with experience across technology, marketing, media and brand strategy. Dog’s strengths lie in creating customer experiences and digital solutions that help clients achieve their marketing ambitions and competitive advantage within their industries.

The agency’s unique position lies in its blend of individuals across multiple marketing, creative, technical and strategic planning disciplines that work together to create solutions for clients’ specific challenges. While services may be similar to others in market, it’s Dog’s blend of people’s perspectives, personalities and capabilities that is unique.

Dog cares about solving marketing problems and business challenges. The agency works to create genuine solutions, underpinned by intelligent strategy and enabled by technology, that have a positive impact on clients’ marketing and commercial performance. In addition, Dog cares about talent, and recognises that empowered, valued people do great work.

Over the past 12 months, a new Silver Partnership with Microsoft strengthened Dog’s commitment to innovation. Its CEO Gerry McCusker’s elected role as BIMA Scotland Chair further drove the agency’s belief in developing industry talent. Also, the agency was appointed lead social media agency to support The Macallan’s ambitious global marketing strategy following the unveiling of its new distillery.

Fee income: £4,603,321 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1997

Owner: Urdgrup Limited

UK head: Al Bird, Managing Director

Contact: Daniel Murphy, Commercial Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 766 9810

Business split: 5% CRM, 10% Creative, 10% Ecommerce, 50% Managed Services, 20% User Experience, 5% Software

Website: abacusemedia.com

Fee income: £4,469,125 (<12/17)

Year founded: 1996

Owner: Independent

UK head: Gerry McCusker, Chief Executive

Contact: David Hamilton, Commercial Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 141 572 0730

Business split: 1% CRM, 31% Creative, 4% Managed Services, 9% Marketing, 15% Media Planning, 6% SEO, 3% Social, 26% Technical Development, 5% User Experience

Website: dogdigital.com

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ODD London

ODD is a creative agency that builds aspirational lifestyles around brands, informed by real-time cultural insight and data.

Using its insight platform, ODD puts the voice of the consumer at the heart of its thinking and creates desirable worlds that customers want to be part of. It calls this marriage of creativity and data ‘Beautiful Effectiveness’, which is what the agency aims to deliver for some of the world’s best-loved brands.

The agency cares most deeply about insight, craft and collaboration.

Having won the Perry Ellis account in the USA, ODD opened its first international office in New York last year. It also won industry awards including the MAA’s #DoDifferent Effectiveness and Best Retail Campaign awards, along with Best Marketing Campaign in the Drapers Footwear Awards.

The agency says: “Today, no longer can digital be seen as an island, owned by specialist departments, lumbering agencies, or fragmented across pure-play specialists.

“As a truly media neutral, consumer-centric creative agency, ODD has purposely never siloed digital, innovation, technology or mobile as standalone offerings. Rather, we deeply integrate these areas into our culture and all our people, from strategists to producers. We work with clients to understand the health, ambition and challenges facing their brands, whilst fully immersing ourselves into both the online and offline worlds that their fans and potential customers live in.

“This journey is a never-ending loop, where we test, learn and optimise to grow key brand and commercial metrics. Our insight and data-driven process helps us navigate our clients through the ever-evolving world of consumer-centric marketing, making us a well-balanced operation to effectively plan, concept and execute truly engaging local and global work for tomorrow’s world.”

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Fee income: £4,321,445 (<01/18)

Year founded: 2004

Owner: Next 15 Communications Group plc

UK head: Simon Glover, Founder & MD

Contact: Simon Glover, Founder & MD, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 490 7900

Business split: 35% Creative, 10% Ecommerce, 30% Marketing, 3% Media Planning, 20% Social, 3% User Experience

Website: oddlondon.com

ClearPeople is a Consultagency™ – a hybrid breed of business offering technical consulting with digital agency services. It works with its clients to create beautifully designed digital experiences that optimise customer and employee engagement by connecting people, processes, systems and information in a mobile-first, cloud-first world.

Together with modern approaches and cutting-edge AI and automation technologies like cognitive services, graph and bots, ClearPeople is making the future digital workspace a reality today. It calls this the Intelligent Workspace, which allows businesses to work in the faster, smarter and more dynamic way that today’s market demands.

Focused on transforming clients’ businesses through technology, ClearPeople cares about innovation – challenging the norm, thinking creatively and pioneering new technologies that help its clients save money, it says. “ClearPeople believe that all digital projects should put humans at their core, defining beautiful and engaging experiences online based on deep user experience research.”

ClearPeople recently launched its new product division, Think-5, which aims specifically to bring new products and micro-apps to the market that help organisations maximise their investment in Microsoft Office 365.

Fat Media specialises in high-end design and build projects along with providing exemplary ongoing advice, marketing and technical support to ensure ongoing success for all clients.

With most clients now having some functions in-house and defined ways of working, flexibility in practices and processes to match what a client is looking for allows the agency to win and retain clients. As an independent agency it is easier to be adaptable, which becomes a real competitive advantage.

The agency cares deeply about generating ROI in everything it delivers for clients and tailoring its customer and delivery services to suit what each key client is looking for. “This allows us to have excellent client retention rates and grow our fee income year on year,” Fat Media says.

In the past 12 months, Fat Media has expanded its Bristol operations. Its new 6,000sqft office in central Bristol is hoped to expand the marketing services offered. It also won Adestra’s email Campaign of the Year, Best Digital Marketing Campaign (Third Sector) at the Northern Digital Awards and Digital Project of the Year at the UK IT Industry Awards.

Fee income: £4,302,923 (<03/18)

Year founded: 2003

Owner: Independent

UK head: Katya Linossi, Co-Founder and Managing Director

Contact: Katya Linossi, Co-Founder and Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 203 376 9500

Business split: 20% Creative, 10% Managed Services, 50% Technical Development, 20% User Experience

Website: clearpeople.com

Fee income: £4,248,067 (<04/18)

Year founded: 2005

Owner: Independent

UK head: John French, Managing Director

Contact: John French, Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 152 454 8948


Website: fatmedia.co.uk

ClearPeople Fat Media9897



Your Favourite Story is a London-based independent agency specialising in the marketing behind product launches.

Your Favourite Story helps its clients find an early competitive advantage by using a range of research techniques to plan, build and deliver all digital elements – both online and in-store – across the full three critical phases of any product launch.

The agency cares most deeply that it produces original and well-planned work that results in business growth for its clients. It outsources little of its work so that its clients can work with and learn from the digital specialists crafting each of their solutions.

The agency had a number of client wins over the last 12 months, which included interesting new projects within the retail and entertainment sectors. It also saw growth from its international clients, mainly in Australia and New Zealand.

CTI Digital is an award-winning full-service digital agency. Through agile practices, it builds, improves and supports world-class websites using Drupal, Magento, Umbraco, and Shopify. CTI also houses experts in quality assurance, design, user experience, digital consultancy, strategy and marketing services, all aiming to enhance users’ experience of the end product.

With 15 years of experience, CTI has attracted a large onsite development team capable of creating websites to serve iconic brands, particularly in the public, third sector, and ecommerce. Clients can also expect ISO 9001:2015 accredited processes, with nationally recognised levels of service delivery.

The agency cares deeply about creativity, technology, and innovation. CTI invests heavily in fostering positive professional relationships. Its unique Discovery process garners insights for the agency to become a digital extension of clients’ brands. From this researched perspective, CTI can match each client with their ideal digital solution, willingly embracing new technologies wherever necessary.

In the past 12 months, CTI has been shortlisted at national awards, including The Drum Search Awards, Big Chip, and the RAR Digital Awards, where it won for Web Development and Service Delivery. It also continues to impress clients, acquiring and renewing contracts with prestigious brands, like Wildlife Trusts, Chatham House and Merlin Entertainments.

Your Favourite Story CTI Digital10099

Fee income: £4,232,153 (<03/18)

Year founded: 2006

Owner: Independent

UK head: Julian Mitchell, CEO

Contact: Julian Mitchell, CEO, [email protected], +44 (0) 845 456 6042

Business split: 30% Creative, 35% Marketing, 5% Media Planning, 10% SEO, 20% Social

Website: yourfavouritestory.com

Fee income: £4,197,354 (<02/18)

Year founded: 2003

Owner: Paperhat

UK head: Nick Rhind, CEO

Contact: Steve Gale, Sales Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 161 713 2434

Business split: 10% Creative, 25% Ecommerce, 10% Managed Services, 5% Marketing, 5% SEO, 40% Technical Development, 5% User Experience

Website: ctidigital.com


Ones to watch

Agencies were invited to enter a ‘Ones to Watch’ category, which puts a spotlight on smaller agencies growing in the industry. Agencies were selected as ‘Ones to Watch’ based on a combination of the entry submissions that were received from companies entering this category, the agency nominations made by those entering the main Top 100 Digital Agencies category as well as research conducted by Econsultancy team members.

Factors taken into consideration for the selection include year-on-year growth in fee income, headcount and/or client list, an impressive client roster and stories of successful and innovative work.



Established in 2005, Cyber-Duck is an award-winning independent digital agency that is trusted by global organisations such as the Bank of England, Mitsubishi Electric and Cancer Research. Our team delivers digital transformation, powered by an ISO accredited user-centred design process, data-driven marketing and technology.

Cyber-Duck’s process uniquely draws on expertise from investment in user experience and creative R&D around conversational user interface (UI), blockchain, voice assistants and artificial intelligence (AI). Excitingly, the agency is in the process of producing a blockchain concept around electronic health records (EHR).

Cyber-Duck’s projects explore connections between the human psyche, design and technology. Its mission is to bind these together to create experiences that are memorable, elegant and achieve important goals for users and organisations. An example of this is Jim.Care, a proof of concept to assist elderly people living alone taking a multimodal approach.

This year, the agency celebrates its 13th anniversary with strong 19% growth year-on-year and launches for the Bank of England and Thomas Cook Money. The agency has announced the appointment of Justin Cooke as a NED and expanded on its 44-strong team with the opening of a third office in Leeds.

Lab believes that combining a thorough understanding of technology and human behaviour is a true superpower. It works with clients to help them make the right decisions on where to invest to drive growth, whether that be in consultancy, research, strategy, branding, design, development and marketing.

Lab is a digital agency led by human behaviour, which it studies to inform the digital experiences and campaigns it creates. This understanding of what people do and why they make decisions means it can design experiences that tap into the emotional and intrinsic motivation of the user.

The agency is driven by a desire to create a world where people are free to do what they love. The Lab team’s expertise in human behaviour, psychology and neuromarketing is at the centre of all decisions in terms of how they bring this vision to life – with enhancing the human experience as the ultimate goal.

After seeing a period of growth, Lab has moved the team into a new five-floor Soho office. Lab offers all its employees the option to work a four-day week, to promote wellbeing, creativity and productivity levels in the team.

Year founded: 2005

UK head: Danny Bluestone, Chief Executive Officer and Founder

Contact: Siji Onabanjo, Growth Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 208 953 0070

Website: cyber-duck.co.uk

Year founded: 2003

UK head: Jonny Tooze, Founder and Managing Director

Contact: Tom Head, Joint Founder and Director, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 183 6668

Website: lab.co.uk

Cyber-Duck Lab

ToyFight partners with ambitious brands and organisations looking to build memorable experiences for consumers through the use of design and technology.

The agency is small and independent, and is comprised of strategists, directors, designers, developers and technologists, working seamlessly across disciplines to build powerful brands that thrive in a digital age.

ToyFight believes that everything starts with an idea, which then leads to great design. It says that design facilitates utility, usability, maintainability, and desirability.

In the last 12 months, ToyFight has produced work for the likes of Google, Beats by Dre, Manchester City, WeWork, Salomon Snowboards, Arts Council England, Well+, Candid, Toggl, Omega Watches, and more.

The agency has more than doubled in size over the last year, attracting talent from overseas, as well as moving into a new studio space in the heart of Manchester’s creative district.

Today’s audiences are in control like never before. Flying Object believe brands need to earn attention outside of traditional channels, with ideas that forge emotional connections. The agency delivers strategy, creative and production for content, social, influencer, and physical brand activation ideas that audiences love.

Flying Object connects brands to the adblocking generation. Founded by former Googlers, Flying Object has never had to change in order to adapt to the new realities of media and marketing. The agency understands how people spend their attention on- and offline, and work to genuinely engage audiences on their own terms.

Flying Object is a small agency and intends to stay that way; it means it can work closely and nimbly with clients to produce great ideas, and scale them to become global campaigns with genuine impact.

This year, the agency picked up one of most ambitious projects yet – producing the 2018 Stand Up To Cancer YouTube livestream for Cancer Research UK, a multi-hour live show with 50+ influencers. The agency also won its first One Show Pencil, awarding its #MoreThanARefugee campaign for YouTube and the IRC.

ToyFight Flying Object

Year founded: 2015

UK head: Jonny Lander and Leigh Whipday (Co-Founders)

Contact: [email protected]

Website: toyfight.co

Year founded: 2013

UK head: Tim Partridge and Tom Pursey, Founders

Contact: Tom Pursey, [email protected], +44 (0)7455 079307

Website: weareflyingobject.com



Wigwam’s roots are in search marketing and website development. In the past year, the agency has evolved to focus more on branding and digital strategy (in the realms of digital design, search and social media) as its network of staff and clients has expanded.

Wigwam was founded on the idea that an agency could do great work while remaining flexible and mobile, creating a balanced work-life environment for all those involved. It has a tight-knit core team and operates on a model that involves freelancers from project to project, ensuring the needs of its clients and staff can be satisfied as best possible.

The agency cares about going beyond conventional business practices and strives to support causes that focus on bringing about positive change. The team’s love of travel and desire to do great work brought about the agency ethos. If these can be combined and allow the agency to do something that helps the world, then Wigwam is more than happy.

Continued growth also allowed Wigwam to host its first event “Do Good”, which focused on bringing together individuals and organisations that shares the agency’s vision of facilitating positive social and environmental change through business practices. Wigwam is shifting towards being a 100% freelancer-based agency. Additionally, it is developing its own CRM and reporting tools that allow closer collaboration and a more transparent workflow.

Uncommon Creative Studio launched in September 2017, with three people, three borrowed desks and no clients. A year later, the agency employs 32 people, has 12 clients and three brands of its own, and nearly £2.75m in turnover.

Uncommon is a creative studio and builds brands that people in the real world wish existed by working with clients or by creating its own brands. These brands are valuable, rare and uncommon.

Since launch, the agency has developed three of its own brands. Halo coffee was the first brand – the world’s first fully compostable, Nespresso-compatible coffee capsules. Within 100 days of launch, Halo had a valuation of £6m and it received £5.5m of B2B orders in 2017.

Alongside its own brands, Uncommon now has 12 clients, ranging from Ovo to ITV, WWF, YouTube Music, Clos 19 (LVMH), Watches of Switzerland, ASOS and Habito.

Uncommon’s first live project for Ovo Energy has already won a D&AD pencil and has been shortlisted for the Marketing Week Masters Awards.

Uncommon has also launched disruptive work for online mortgage broker Habito. Most recently, the agency co-created a new fashion brand – Collusion – with ASOS, which is a brand created for and by Gen Z and launches in October 2018.

Year founded: 2016

UK head: Janis Brix, Managing Director

Contact: Janis Brix, Managing Director, [email protected], +44 (0)7913 313 591

Website: wigwam.digital

Year founded: 2017

UK head: Natalie Graeme, Lucy Jameson and Nils Leonard (Founders)

Contact: Natalie Graeme, Founder, [email protected] +44 (0) 7912 781 088

Website: uncommon.london

Wigwam Uncommon Creative Studio


Case studies

This section showcases a collection of case studies submitted by a number of the Top 100 agencies. These stories highlight examples of successful work that demonstrate digital excellence. Each case study outlines a summary of the agency’s work, objectives, strategy and key tactics, results and awards won.


Cognizant Interactive

The Digital Football Experience: Inspiring and supporting every kick and click

Summary

The Football Association (FA) is responsible for overseeing all aspects of amateur and professional football in England. As the oldest association of its kind in the world (formed in 1863), it is continuing to transform to remain a highly engaged sports organisation. The majority of participants are young and tech-savvy, accustomed to 24/7 availability and ease of use. The FA appointed Cognizant Interactive as an end-to-end digital transformation partner to modernise its participant’s journey, digitally.

Cognizant Interactive created a world-leading digital platform to enhance The FA’s engagement with all football participants – fans, players, coaches and commercial partner organisations. Using integrated data analytics and information systems, Cognizant developed new content-based experiences, ways to personalise content and simplified the use of web content.

Participants now develop more enduring, meaningful relationships with the FA and each other, while the FA inspires and supports every kick and click along the way.

CASE STUDY


Objectives

The ambition was to reach and engage new and more diverse audiences – 5 million active fans, players and enablers – by 2020.

The FA’s top-line strategy is simple: to help players, fans and all enablers get the most out of their football experiences. Russell James, The FA’s Director of Digital Engagement, strives “to match how people use mobile devices as part of their everyday life”, thus providing “meaningful benefits to the game, our partners and the role that The FA and County Football Associations have with the people we are here to serve and inspire”.

Cognizant is now central to The FA’s digital engagement programme. The new digital solutions, developed and managed by Cognizant, make it easier for all to get involved in the sport, improve themselves, and feel rewarded.

Ultimately, the goal is to motivate participants to expand the network, nurturing more football communities across the nation.

Strategy and key tactics

Cognizant Interactive developed the digital strategy with The FA and deployed features across digital channels to improve engagement.

Using insights gleaned from key stakeholders, Cognizant set out to create a digital transformation programme including: a focus on the engagement of girls, encouraging more of them to take up football; a programme to provide specialised content based on the customer’s interests; an analytics tool to capture customers’ likes/dislikes; intuitive tools to make the process of creating, reviewing and deploying web

content simple and easy; a mobile version of the FA’s Full Time digital service to help young players, their families and volunteers to effortlessly follow their local team’s fixtures and results; and a mobile events solution to help the coordination of individuals as part of FA participation programmes such as The FA People’s Cup and Girls’ Football Week.

Results

As testimony to the proven methodology adopted, one of the delivered products has clocked around 34,300 players across 6,877 teams, engaging through the platform in a relatively short timeframe. As more products are launched, Cognizant will expand on this success.

The benefits delivered through four digital products, thus far, include the following:

For Girls: the strategy contributed to doubling Women’s Game Growth by supporting more than 10,000 girls find football locally while helping participant girls increase their confidence and get more involved.

Follow Football: Engagement in football increased and grassroots fans can now enjoy near real-time information across all devices, with 50m page views since launch.

England Men’s Seniors & Travel Club: a mobile product released before the World Cup to increase engagement with England Supporters drove sign ups to the England Supporters and Travel Club, thus increasing England ticket sales.

As testimony to the proven methodology adopted, one of the delivered products has clocked around 34,300 players across 6,877 teams, engaging through the platform in a relatively short timeframe.


Somo

Somo boosts key page visits in Audi site redesign

Summary

Audi Beta is a complete redesign, crafted to deliver the best website experience of any premium automotive business.

The site seeks to break the tradition of how automotive brands show their products online. Instead of displaying pages upon pages of confusing material, the Beta site is thoughtfully stripped back, leading users effortlessly through their journey. Beautiful content immerses users in the Audi brand, and native device features deliver experiences that are both delightful and relevant.

Important objectives were to drive more visitors to the key areas of the site to compare models, view used cars and prepare a quote.

This modern, premium, adaptive site delivers an exceptional user experience and creates radical differentiation. It is a quintessential example of Audi’s lasting commitment to Vorsprung durch Technik – progress through technology.

CASE STUDY


Objectives

Audi’s objective was to provide the best website experience of any premium automotive business. It wanted to deliver a customer-first, responsive site that makes it easier for visitors to research, configure and buy an Audi.

Audi knew that customers were finding three things difficult, which were: understanding the differences between models in a range, understanding the differences between trim options and seeing how the various combinations of models and trims would affect the price they pay.

Somo’s goal was to direct a greater percentage of visitor traffic to the model pages, the configurator and the Quote My Audi page, which would indicate an improvement in these site journeys. Audi was struggling to maintain two separate sites (its desktop/tablet site and its mobile site), which were managed by two different agencies, and wanted to find a way of maximising efficiency by creating a single, responsive site.


Somo built a dedicated Agile team of Audi and Somo members, co-located to enable collaboration and the greatest productivity. This combined team embarked on a ‘Sprint Zero’ together to define the site’s requirements and flesh out early concepts.

The agency analysed customer flows and traffic to understand where pages could be decommissioned or consolidated to create an easier user experience across the site. User research was continual and integrated into every sprint to ensure a 100% customer-first approach.

Adobe Experience Manager 6.2 and React were employed to power cross-device adaptive experiences and bring efficiency. An emphasis on modern DevOps processes and a close partnership with Audi’s back-end partner and internal IT team meant technical challenges could be overcome quickly.

Meanwhile, the design team focused on solving the core customer needs by making comparison of models, trim options and prices simple, quick and easy.

Results

The Beta site initially launched to 20% of audi.co.uk visitors in October 2017, which was ramped up to 80% over the course of eight months. Since launch, nearly 5 million visitors have been directed to Beta.

Results show that compared to the existing site, Beta has been successful in driving visitors to the key areas and tools that are most important to Audi and its customers, including an 81% increase in visits to model pages, a 109% increase in visits to used cars, a 117% increase in visits to Quote My Audi and an 88% increase in visits to the Audi owners’ area of the site.

The Beta site initially launched to 20% of audi.co.uk visitors in October 2017, which was ramped up to 80% over the course of eight months. Since launch, nearly 5 million visitors have been directed to Beta.


Amido Ltd

Broadcaster gains efficiencies with innovative audio search solution

Summary

Amido began working with a global media and entertainment brand that was struggling to monitor the broadcast of clients’ promotional campaigns across multiple platforms and stations.

As an innovative media company, the entertainment brand wanted to digitally transform its processes from manually searching, recording and logging campaigns on each broadcasted show to a more search-friendly platform that is easily managed, uses less storage and is cost- and time-effective.

However, given the myriad software solutions available, the company needed to ensure that it was not being tied to one specific vendor. After consulting with the platform and vendor agnostic cloud consultancy Amido, the radio station used its in-house talents and married them with the specialist knowhow of the Amido team to build a new software solution, which stitched together a number of software products and was hosted on its chosen cloud platform.

CASE STUDY


Objectives

Before working with Amido, the commercial team at this global media and entertainment company had to manually listen back to every radio show to record how many times a client’s brand was mentioned, a process that could take hours. Once all the mentions were logged, they would cut and pull each of these clips into an audio file for the client.

The commercial team would also need to offset these mentions against other factors, such as peak hour listening numbers, ensuring that the client’s promotional targets were hit to demonstrate return on investment. This painstaking task was vital to the commercial arm of the business for maintaining client relations and securing further business ventures, but it proved to be a financial burden within the organisation.

Amido’s goal was to build a solution that reduced the time taken to achieve the task from hours to minutes.


To maintain business agility and technical flexibility, Amido collaborated with in-house teams to build a new software solution that stitched together a number of proven SaaS and FaaS products and hosted it on their chosen cloud platform.

Amido advised using VoiceBase, an innovative speech-to-text service. It uses its own proprietary speech engine technology to deliver industry-leading accuracy with the fastest turnaround time and at a low price. Coupling that with the AWS Elasticsearch Service made it easy to deploy, operate, and scale for log analytics, full text search, application monitoring, and more.

Each show could be transcribed by VoiceBase before Elasticsearch let users query the converted audio-to-text and refer them back to the audio snippets. The simple front-end design allowed users to search for audio, verify by listening and reading the text transcript and then download it to send to the client.

Results

From idea to actuality, Amido delivered a solution fit for purpose in eight weeks.

The rapidly deployed solution, termed ‘FreQ’ (short for ‘frequency’), has reduced the amount of work required by the company’s teams to search and compile promotional audio content examples for their clients by more than half, cutting the process from a few hours down to only a few minutes.

This was an improvement that enabled their sales teams to focus on more value-add commercial opportunities. An immediate result was seen in reducing the amount of time spent on administrative tasks, allowing the team to focus on the broader business strategy.

Presenters and producers are now using the service to review what has been said on air and in its discussion of show performance and content, demonstrating that the solution is transferable to other business problems.

Awards

Amido’s work on project ‘FreQ’ won in the Most Innovative Emerging Technology category at the 2018 UK Cloud Awards.1

1 https://amido.com/news-events/news/amido-wins-most-innovative-

emerging-technology-with-project-freq-at-uk-cloud-awards-2018/

Amido’s work on project ‘FreQ’ won in the Most Innovative Emerging Technology category at the 2018 UK Cloud Awards.


Red Badger

Digital transformation at one of the world’s largest banks

Summary

Red Badger has been working with one of the world’s largest banks since 2016. With products going live in the last year, the agency’s work is contributing to a global efficiency target of £1.2bn.

The bank’s Originations and Utilities team identified that conversion rates on retail products were less than 5%. For the eligible customers, there were two key reasons. First, the bank’s customer-facing websites were limited in functionality due to inflexible technology and a lack of agility in the mainframe systems. The process required them to visit their local branch to complete a transaction.

The bank was working with dated technology, legacy systems and complex back office processes. It approached Red Badger to deliver a technology transformation programme. However, the scale of what was needed was far larger. It needed to change its processes, build internal capability and put the customer at the heart of its digital strategy.

CASE STUDY


Objectives

The programme had to hit four key objectives, which were to deliver quality digital products to the bank’s customers quickly, improve the customer experience of opening a new current account and applying for a loan or credit card, help the team build internal capability and change the culture and reduce operational costs by increasing business efficiency. There was a need to change the way the bank worked.

Red Badger’s objective was to help the business move faster by creating more autonomy within the teams. It set about reducing their dependencies on shared platforms and pipelines, so that it could first create, and then scale.


Red Badger helped create the delivery plans for three product roadmaps that could be delivered by agile, cross-functional teams from start to finish. Each team consisting of UX, Design, Engineering, QA and an Agile Delivery Lead became accountable for the on time launch of the product.

The agency reduced each team’s dependencies on shared platforms and pipelines, so that they could be autonomous. By starting small and building live products, they could continuously test for accessibility. Red Badger also created a solution that enables teams to deploy their microservice-based applications onto cloud provider agnostic ‘microplatforms’.

Teams can now create and destroy identical environments in minutes and manage their own deployments for testing and production. This

means that teams can deliver continuously, whilst reducing the risk of failure and the mean time to recovery when failures occur, dramatically increasing velocity and speed of products to customers.

Results

The conversion rate on retail products increased from 5% to 72% following the implementation of the programme. It enabled the first straight-through processed credit card product ever in the launch country, with the bank seeing 17,000 credit card applications (66% of which could be approved immediately). It also allowed digital customers to open an account with the bank in 10 minutes, and the bank could process 2,000 loan applications a week without manual intervention.

The bank has now expanded from one team in London to 26 teams in 10 countries. All teams were onboarded by Red Badger’s design, delivery and technical consultants.

It could reduce its operational costs and increase business efficiency with straight-through banking, a method that lets customers open an account online without having to visit a branch. The products used by branch staff reduced account opening time by 46%.

Awards

Red Badger was a BIMA Awards 2018 Finalist in the Transformation and Consultancy Impact Category1

1 http://bimaawards.com/shortlist-2018/

The conversion rate on retail products increased from 5% to 72% following the implementation of the programme.


Rufus Leonard

Defining The Gym Group’s brand strategy in a crowded market

Summary

When The Gym Group launched in 2008, it had a mission – to make quality fitness facilities accessible and affordable for everyone. Digital was central to this strategy. Using a mix of ecommerce, automated access, process digitisation and targeted eCRM, it created a gym that was contract-free, open 24/7, and less than half the price of mass-market competitors.

The Gym Group selected Rufus Leonard to build and implement an upgrade to their platform – one that would not only scale to match their long-term expansion plans, but also be a foundation for future enhancements – with digital innovation being the heart of their business and brand.

It also asked Rufus Leonard to define its brand strategy and help launch its new membership offering. The goal was to increase its appeal through two distinctive new product brands, building and launching them across this new digital platform within a short timeframe.

CASE STUDY


Objectives

One of the main challenges The Gym Group faced was differentiating itself within a crowded market.

Rufus Leonard had to make sure that The Gym Group’s products offered a clear, distinctive identity with a powerful message that would attract new customers, engage brand enthusiasts and motivate them to act. With a short launch deadline ahead, everything had to happen fast, with open collaboration between in-house and third-party suppliers.

As Britain’s next-generation gym company, it also needed to transform itself digitally for the future, with a pioneering new platform. This included a unique, purpose-built API layer, ready for any device and any update – taking its web-centric business beyond ‘digital-first’ to digital pace-setter and integrating all its data to enhance strategy, sales and a personalised, 24/7 service.


The agency’s service encompassed three of its four ‘brand experience engines’, so it brought a broad range of expertise to the project while managing it end-to-end.

This included: brand strategy, product naming and brand creation, UX, digital service design and build, content creation, development and build, as well as ongoing third-party integration and management of the brand’s interactive platform.

Through the launch of two new membership products, Rufus Leonard created a clear, distinct brand identity, allowing The Gym Group to stand out exceptionally within the market. It also redesigned major elements of the site to feature the new products.

The agency adopted agile working principles to deliver the work quickly, working closely with client teams and third parties to smooth out potential setbacks and bugs during build.

It is now conducting a phase of continuous enhancement to the website, providing new features and functionality for both members and in-gym staff.

Results

The agency delivered an outstanding product suite that gives The Gym Group real brand distinction within the market. The brand has expanded its customer base, and the web platform has been enhanced to link in with multiple third parties to offer the new premium features via a web API.

In just six months following the launch, the new platform exceeded all its objectives. In January, the company announced a trading update to the City including total year-end membership numbers in 2017 up by 35.5% to 607,000, total revenue growth of 24.3% for the year (compared with 2016) and a 44% growth in gym estate to 128 sites over the year. The Gym Group’s estimated share of the low-cost gym market also increased to 22.4% (from 17.7% in 2016).

Awards

In November 2017, the new website won Best Website for Ecommerce at the annual Episerver Website Awards, with the panel commenting that “personalisation for different audience groups through the customer journey, dependent on previous interactions, was a strong feature, with a redesign that had delivered impressive uplifts in conversion metrics”.

The website has since been shortlisted for a Computing Magazine Digital Technology Leaders Award and a Marketing Week Masters.

Through the launch of two new membership products, Rufus Leonard created a clear, distinct brand identity, allowing The Gym Group to stand out within the market. It also redesigned major elements of the site to feature the new products.


Answer Digital

New order capture system drives up basket size and revenue

Summary

Ramsden International is a wholesale exporter with a complex international business model and diverse customer base. It has more than 500 customers across 140 countries and a range of over 23,000 SKUs across frozen, ambient and chilled categories.

Ramsden International approached Answer Digital to look at improving its current order capture system (ROCS). The existing processes for customers to place orders was process heavy and relied on a system that was past its prime, having developed over time to comply with numerous changes in legislation and to accommodate a growing customer base. It was slow and no longer fit for purpose. Ramsden International wanted to reduce administrative burden to focus on servicing their customers better and helping them grow.

After evaluating ecommerce solutions including Magento and Hybris, it was decided that Answer Digital’s approach to bespoke retail development and experience in B2B systems was the right fit for this project.

CASE STUDY


Objectives

Ramsden International and Answer Digital defined four critical success factors at the outset of the ROCS project. The first was to drive sales revenue growth through the provision of automated quotation and order capture functionality, enabling easy access to the whole range. This would be supplemented with system capability to drive up-selling and cross-selling.

The second was to deliver operational cost savings in customer service advisor (CSA) activity by enabling customer self-sufficiency, including removing the dependency on CSA support in quote and order processes.

The brand also wished to enable supplier income stream through provision of a system that can surface customer, supplier and context specific information in response to given user profiles.

Finally, the campaign needed to drive customer acquisition through digital offering in quotation and ordering process.


ROCS was delivered using TIDE, Answer’s agile delivery framework. This incorporates UX, incremental development and testing, frequent releases and customer validation.

A four-week discovery phase delivered a structured view of delivery, including; scope, solution design, key UX artefacts, testing strategy, delivery roadmap and a defined minimum viable product.

Structured into prototype, alpha and beta phases of delivery, the strategy was to deliver working software as quickly as possible to facilitate customer testing and validate benefits delivery.

A cross-functional business team offered product ownership, working with Answer to iteratively shape UX prototypes to bring user story requirements to life. Working in advance of development cycles, this ensured development activity was completed without ambiguity, improving delivery cadence.

Periodic end customer testing was completed in order to assess and validate application intuitiveness, accessibility and user journeys. This offered valuable insight into design decisions throughout the project.

Results

After the solution was implemented, the quality and accuracy of orders improved, as did the range accessibility for customers, who could access live information about product availability, substitutes and alternatives.

There were significant advances in product search speed and accuracy, with the introduction of intelligent search tooling. Ramsden also reported a 67% time reduction in internal order line replacement process.

Ninety-five of Ramsden’s approximately 500 customers have now been migrated and are using ROCS. There was an average basket size uplift of 307 new SKUs per migrated customer, and 29,000 new SKUs ordered in total across all migrated customers.

Ramsden also reported an average sales uplift of £31k per customer, equivalent to £2.95m in the first 12 months. After completing migration, the platform is expected to drive up to £12m increased sales each year. With continued development, Ramsden expects to build more value by creating further efficiencies and increasing revenue.

A UX case study1 was created to illustrate how the UX lead approach shaped the platform.

Awards

Ramsden International won the Exporter of the Year at the Grocer Gold Awards 2018.2

1 https://2erxyr.axshare.com/about_the_project.html

2 https://www.thegrocergoldawards.co.uk/the-grocer-awards-2018-winners/


ODD London

Establishing supermarket Tesco as a stylish fashion retailer

Summary

Supermarket Woman is a 360-degree omnichannel campaign that has helped exceed key metrics, including the highest rate of ad recall in F&F’s history; an 86% increase in sales; positive cost efficiencies across paid-for media and an increase of 135% in organic engagement on Instagram alone. The campaign lives on into 2018 following its success last year.

Objectives

The core ambition was to deliver a measurable step change that would differentiate the brand from the competition and drive consumer engagement, while elevating F&F’s fashion credentials. The campaign also aimed to deliver growth via existing customers and new customer acquisition, increase brand awareness and consideration and improve key brand perception metrics.

CASE STUDY



To drive an emotional connection with consumers new and old and to deliver a step change for the brand, ODD created a platform which embraced something that competitors have shied away from but is at the heart of F&F’s offering – the supermarket.

F&F represents the fun part of the supermarket shop. The aisle is the place where kaftans and flip-flops break up the humdrum of the shopping list. It is where ‘accidental’ dresses get bought when customers had only popped out for milk.

Acknowledging this behaviour and bringing it to life in a stylish way to make a virtue of F&F’s location gave birth to the new global campaign platform ‘Supermarket Woman’.

Designed to appeal to women who love fashion, are confident in their taste and have not forgotten fashion’s fun side, the campaign comprises TV, digital, print, out of home and an always-on social strategy.

Results

The campaign achieved the highest recall of any previous F&F ad (40% recognition vs 25% in SS16). Compared with the SS16 campaign, Supermarket Woman was found to be 16% more attention-grabbing. While 6% more consumers wanted to find out more about F&F, 7% more said it was the ‘brand for me’ and 8% more said that they enjoyed watching the ad.

Fifteen percent more said that they thought the items in the ad represented ‘good value for money’. F&F also saw more traffic to its site and an increase in sales following the campaign. Site visits to F&F were up by 31% compared with the SS16 campaign, while womenswear sales increased by 86%, after visits to the womenswear page rose by 23%. Sales of the lines shown in the TV ad saw a 93% boost.

Awards

The campaign won in the Effectiveness and Retail categories at the 2018 MAA #DoDifferent Awards and was shortlisted as a Best Fashion Marketing Campaign at the 2018 Drapers Awards.

The campaign achieved the highest recall of any previous F&F ad (40% recognition vs 25% in SS16). Compared with the SS16 campaign, Supermarket Woman was found to be 16% more attention-grabbing.


The BIO Agency

Future proofing a trusted heritage brand

Summary

In this campaign, The BIO Agency focused on future proofing global real estate provider Savills. It sought to do this by leveraging the global scale and wealth of localised knowledge, building a business that seamlessly joins physical and digital for holistic service excellence. In simple terms, the digital tools it built had to work for, and reflect, the specialist knowledge held throughout the business.

Objectives

Savills is a market-leading global real estate provider and FTSE 250 company, established in 1855. Built on relationships, it is a trusted heritage brand and has a very strong market position. The BIO Agency was appointed to deliver a customer-centric transformation programme, including creative direction for the new Savills digital platform, to help achieve revenue growth over the next five years and proactively meet the challenge of property market disruptors.

CASE STUDY



The first phase of work involved redefining what customer experience means for the property market, to inform a new creative direction for Savills’ digital platform.

Using its Change Today, Change Tomorrow framework, The BIO Agency built a transformation programme that runs across two independent streams. Change Today means working to do the basics brilliantly, and Change Tomorrow is a long-term programme to help define the digital future for Savills.

From the start, the agency worked to ensure that smart, data-driven valuations flowed through to personalised experiences that can help Savills lead the property industry. Its transformation map integrated both customer and business journeys, giving it a view of prioritised opportunities and projects that drive towards Savills’ vision. Bringing together both customer and business journeys in this way allowed for the integration of all key service delivery layers – marketing, digital, operations, and culture.

Results

The creation of detailed service blueprints gave an in-depth view of Savills’ as-is service across all physical and digital touchpoints, identifying and developing responses to unfulfilled customer needs. This foundational work has set up Savills for future success.

Savills’ online platform is now a modern and innovative property service, with fresh, responsive creative and personalised, curated customer experiences. It has been very positively received, and the work continues to drive generational loyalty with the integration of data and digital technology.

Savills’ online platform is now a modern and innovative property service, with fresh, responsive creative and personalised, curated customer experiences.


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