Campaigns
B2B CAMPAIGN
Accounts Deceivable
Agency: Fight or Flight
Client: Medius
Finance professionals underestimate the scale of financial fraud. This was a challenge for Medius, a B2B provider of anti-fraud software. The solution? Tell a hard-hitting, moving story that was impossible to forget. Fight or Flight created Accounts Deceivable, a true-crime podcast, which examined the human cost of financial fraud. P...
Green Means Go
Agency: MHP Group
Client: E.ON
Green Means Go by MHP Group and E.ON used polling, poetry and people power to ensure that business leaders stayed focused on green investment during the energy crisis.The project started life as a b2b communications brief, but ended up as the centrepiece for a large, integrated campaign to tie in with E.ON’s Commonwealth Games sponsors...
What on Earth is the Value of Space
Agency: Ogilvy UK
Client: Inmarsat
With climate change and pollution dominating ‘green’ headlines, Inmarsat challenged Ogilvy to launch an altogether different, but just as vital, mission – alert people to the role space plays in enabling sustainability on Earth – and change mindsets around the threat posed by space junk. The world’s largest study into human percepti...
Zoom Towns
Agency: Zeno London
Client: Zoom
In mid-2022, with Covid abating, Zoom needed to move from pandemic ‘poster child’ to the forefront of hybrid working conversation. Zeno developed Zoom Towns – a UK-wide analysis of locations across the country that had seen a boom in remote workers, powered by platforms like Zoom. With a media strategy designed to reach both business d...
BEST ENVIRONMENTAL PURPOSE CAMPAIGN
Money Saving Boiler Challenge
Agency: Nesta
Nesta’s Money Saving Boiler Challenge inspired thousands of UK households to change their boiler settings, saving money and energy at the peak of the cost of living crisis. Developed by an in-house team at Nesta, the UK’s innovation agency for social good, the campaign combined extensive research with innovative digital product design,...
Save Our Wild Isles
Agency: National Trust, the RSPB & WWF
Save Our Wild Isles is the first time three of the UK’s largest nature charities – the RSPB, WWF and the National Trust – have come together to launch the country’s biggest-ever campaign, raising awareness about the state of UK nature and inspiring people, business leaders and governments to drive change and make the UK Nature Positive...
Unearthing The Green Gap
Agency: W Communications
Client: Grow To Know
For Grow to Know, W Communications took on the institutionalised world of horticulture to force inclusion and make gardening more accessible for people regardless of race, gender, age, or socioeconomic background. With a strategy of royal disruption over permission, we rocked the ground beneath the establishment’s feet to such an exten...
BEST INTEGRATED CAMPAIGN
Dramatic Transformation
Agency: Golin
Client: Asics
The ‘Before and after’ exercise transformation photos we see across social media and adverts are meant to send a positive message, but ASICS research showed that they were alienating people from exercise and damaging mental health. As a champion of mental wellness through movement, ASICS stood against this issue. Working with influence...
Love or Hate, the unborn baby edition
Agency: W Communications & adam&eveddb
Client: Marmite
For longstanding client Marmite, W Communications and adam&eveddb daringly utilised 4D ultrasound baby scanning technology to find the UK’s ultra-early lover and haters. Integrated in approach, our unborn baby campaign would traverse TV, traditional media, social media, and dark social pre-natal parenting groups all in the name of winn...
Me, My Autism & I
Agency: One Green Bean & Havas London
Client: Vanish
The No-Bounty Celebrations Tub
Agency: Taylor Herring & Mars Wrigley
This campaign was devised to win the UK Christmas chocolate war and featured the most divisive chocolate in the Celebrations tub (and beyond) - the coconut-filled Bounty. In actual fact, the campaign didn’t feature Bounty at all, quite the opposite – it completely removed it - with the launch of limited edition No-Bounty festive tub...
BEST INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN
Classics Can Be Remixed
Agency: Golin X Lola MullenLowe
Client: Magnum
To launch the Magnum Remix ice cream, we partnered with legendary chart topper Kylie Minogue and South Korean dance music icon Peggy Gou to create a remixed version and reimagined music video of ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’. We launched these at the Cannes Film Festival as part of an integrated campaign across earned, paid, owned and...
Saw This, Made This
Agency: Bombay Sapphire for Ogilvy PR
Bombay Creativity has been at the heart of Bombay Sapphire for over 30 years. This year, the brief was simple but ambitious: get people to engage with their creativity - on a global scale - with an integrated, digital first campaign. The result was ‘Saw This Made This’ an epic eight month campaign that involved visionary film director ...
Sustainable Cities Index 2022: Prosperity Beyond Profit
Agency: Man Bites Dog
Client: Arcadis
The Sustainable Cities Index (SCI) for Arcadis by Man Bites Dog ranks 100 cities across a range of sustainability metrics, delivering outstanding media impact, driving prospect engagement and championing change. The 2022 Index – ‘Prosperity Beyond Profit’ – promotes a new vision of city success, redefining prosperity to incorporate ...
Taking LEGO fans to DREAM(Zzz)land with the LEGO Group’s most ambitious IP yet
Agency: The LEGO Group & Golin
In 2023, the LEGO Group wanted to excite and amaze kids with an all-new home-grown IP, LEGO DREAMZzz. But it wanted to launch in a whole new way for the brand, with episodic content first, followed by physical products not on sale until months afterwards. What followed was a truly international campaign that turned kid’s dreams ...
BEST PR EVENT
Conference of the People, Powered by PUMA
Agency: MSL UK
Client: PUMA
PUMA’s ‘Conference of the People’ aimed to close the gap between the deeply technical nature of sustainability and the expectations of a Gen-Z audience by giving that audience a voice. A 10 month programme put Gen-Z at the heart of PUMA and in with the brand’s C-suite. 11.8 billion impressions, 886 pieces of media coverage, 72million r...
Follow In Her Footsteps
Agency: Brands2Life
Client: LinkedIn
When LinkedIn was planning its sponsorship of UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 no-one knew what a phenomenon the Lionesses would become. We wanted to go back to the very beginning of women’s football and showcase the female role models who started it all – and, in the process, provide a platform to present LinkedIn’s commitment to ‘make the worl...
Unearthing The Green Gap
Agency: W Communications
Client: Grow To Know
For Grow2Know, W Communications took on the institutionalised world of horticulture to force inclusion via a disruptive event within an event itself. With a strategy of royal disruption over permission, we rocked the very ground beneath the establishment’s feet to such an extent, Parliament took notice within 72 hours of our launch and...
What The Gut?
Agency: Ketchum UK
Client: Danone
When Activia asked us to educate the UK on their gut health – and the role Activia plays within this - we built a museum dedicated to all things bowel and beyond. The ‘What The Gut?’ Museum was backed by consumer research and created in partnership with the gut doctor, Dr Zoe Williams, and was a two-day exhibition that literally walked...
BEST SOCIAL PURPOSE (ESG) CAMPAIGN
Be Yourself... Celebrating Individuality through Uniforms
Agency: Tin Man
Client: Virgin Atlantic
When you land 2000+ articles globally in three days, you know you’ve made an impact. But when you genuinely make a difference to a company’s people and customers… that’s what makes a campaign special. To cement Virgin Atlantic as the most inclusive airline, we listened to our people, ripped up the uniform rulebook, allowing them ...
Iceland Food Club
Agency: Ketchum UK and Think Communications
Client: Iceland Foods
Skyrocketing inflation of gas, electricity and food dealt a heavy blow to consumers in 2022. Across Europe, rising costs were especially severe in the UK where food had soared 17.6+%. Iceland Foods, a value supermarket that serves many vulnerable UK communities, saw the harsh reality of growing food insecurity. So, we charted a new CSR...
Reclaiming School Picture Day
Agency: The Romans
Client: Dove
28% of women with afro or textured hair skip school picture day due to anxiousness around race-based hair discrimination. To tell their story, we simply reshot some of these women’s school photos, but on their own terms as their most authentic selves. Our campaign resulted in the issuance of new government rules for schools abolishi...
World’s First Human Rights Protest In Qatar
Agency: Be Broadcast
Client: The Peter Tatchell Foundation
The Be Broadcast team, the Peter Tatchell Foundation, and their partners organized the first LGBT+ protest in Qatar and any Gulf state, one month before the football World Cup began. The protest was pre- planned with security services, and the team prepared for every possible scenario.
BEST USE OF A CELEBRITY(IES)
Brenda Edwards at the heart of live saving CPR campaign
Virgin Media O2 in partnership with British Heart Foundation (supported by Hope & Glory and Broadcast Revolution
Agency: Virgin Media O2
O2 rolled out life-saving defibrillators in hundreds of its stores and worked with TV personality Brenda Edwards to raise awareness and encourage the public to sign up for free and easy CPR training with the British Heart Foundation. Brenda supported with a broadcast day, media interviews, quotes and photos, helping to secure over 80 p...
Chien' - The Scent of Tanya Bardsley
Agency: COW
Client: Missing People Search Dog Heroes
Search Dog Heroes is a new scheme to help find vulnerable people, such as those living with dementia, based on a person's scent. However, media had told Missing People it was a non-story. Working with practically zero budget, we played on the idea of scent and recruited reality star Tanya Bardsley to subvert a typical celebrity trope...
Getting the nation talking... in BSL
Agency: Tin Man
Client: Cadbury Fingers
To launch Cadbury Fingers' partnership with National Deaf Children’s Society, Tin Man wanted the hearing community to experience exclusion – just like people with deafness do everyday - and used a blend of popular culture and purpose to do so. Consulting with a team of deaf advisors, we teamed up with deaf star ‘du jour’ – Tasha Ghou...
Logan Roy Opens the Markets
Agency: NOW and London Stock Exchange with Hope&Glory
We made fiction a reality as we arranged for Logan Roy to open the Market at the London Stock Exchange’s balcony to launch the final season on NOW. There were over 100 pieces of coverage across broadcast, print, and online titles. These included no fewer than 16 pieces of national media coverage dedicated to the stunt. Critically,...
Lucy's
Agency: One Green Bean
Client: Domino's
BEST USE OF CONTENT
50 Shades of Ginger
Agency: Fight or Flight
Client: Roland DG
Roland’s innovative TrueVis prints the brightest, most accurate colours - even tricky oranges and reds. How could we demonstrate this simple product truth and make the TrueVis printer famous? No one understands the nuance of red and orange better than redheads, whose diverse hair colour covers a hugely broad spectrum of shades. And...
Life. Subtitled.
Agency: Boldspace and Markettiers
Client: XRAI Glass
XRAI creates software powered by Augmented Reality, converting audio into visuals allowing a pair of smart glasses to turn speech into subtitles, in real-time, changing the lives for the deaf and hard of hearing community. XRAI came to Boldspace and Markettiers to develop a strategy and inspirational content to launch XRAI to the world...
Opportunities to Save
Agency: W Communications
Client: Anthony Nolan
For Anthony Nolan, W Communications transformed the complicated subject matter of blood cancer and the stem cell donation crisis into a bold, influencer powered, content campaign that saved lives. Targeting a notoriously difficult to reach young male audience, our ‘Opportunities to Save’ campaign increased average annual donations sign...
Scammer House of Horrors
Agency: Taylor Herring
Client: NatWest
We leveraged Halloween to bring the dangers of real financial scams to life and make this taboo topic truly engaging. Using genuine customer case studies, we created a trilogy of horror stories titled Scammer House of Horrors – complete with original illustrations and available to download free via the NatWest website. Acclaimed ...
Technicolour Sound
Agency: MSL UK
Client: Technics Panasonic
Our Technicolour sound campaign for Technics helped celebrate the 50th anniversary of a music icon. Through a world-first set across seven genres and seven DJs, we generated 54million minutes of content watched, a shout out from David Guetta and love from fans all across the world. Not only that, the anniversary decks sold out in weeks...
BEST USE OF CREATIVITY
Be Yourself...Celebrating Individuality through Uniforms
Agency: Tin Man
Client: Virgin Atlantic
When you land 2000+ articles globally in three days, you know you’ve made an impact. But when you genuinely make a difference to a company’s people and customers… that’s what makes a campaign special. To cement Virgin Atlantic as the most inclusive airline, we listened to our people, ripped up the uniform rulebook, allowing them ...
Real Life Roomsets
Agency: IKEA and Shelter with Hope&Glory and Weber Shandwick
Creating roomsets in IKEA stores that depicted the real living conditions of those in temporary accommodation had a profound impact. There were 324 pieces of editorial coverage, the IKEA policy pages set up for the campaign received 11,300 visitors and there were over 3.5m impressions and over 32,000 engagements on LinkedIn alone. ...
Reclaiming School Picture Day
Agency: The Romans
Client: Dove
28% of women with afro or textured hair skip school picture day due to anxiousness around race-based hair discrimination. To tell their story, we simply reshot some of these women’s school photos, but on their own terms as their most authentic selves. Our campaign resulted in the issuance of new government rules for schools abolishi...
The No-Bounty Celebrations Tub
Agency: Taylor Herring & Mars Wrigley
This campaign was devised to win the UK Christmas chocolate war and featured the most divisive chocolate in the Celebrations tub (and beyond) - the coconut-filled Bounty. In actual fact, the campaign didn’t feature Bounty at all, quite the opposite – it completely removed it - with the launch of limited edition No-Bounty festive tub...
BEST USE OF AN INFLUENCER(S)
Human Renaissance
Agency: The Romans
Client: Estrid
Renaissance artists conspicuously ignored any hint of human body hair In their art. After all, men have been using art to dictate idealised standards of beauty for women since the first caveman decided to graffiti his walls. We set out to change that, partnering with diverse, inclusive influencers and talent across Europe to reimagin...
Meme-ingful Connections
Agency: John Doe Group
Client: Tinder UK
Tinder is the biggest dating app in the world, and 1 in 5 users identify as LGBTQIA+. However, the brand was not perceived by Gen Z as an inclusive space for queer people. The brand briefed John Doe to deliver a digital comms campaign during Pride that would help them shift this perception and show that the app is a fun, safe way for q...
More Pixels, Epic Details
Agency: FleishmanHillard UK
Client: Samsung
These days everyone thinks they’re Annie Lebovitz. 12mb cameras or less come as standard and take serviceable photos, so how much better can one phone camera be from the next? [spoiler: a lot better] When Samsung launched its 200mb pixel camera with ISOCELL HP2 image sensor technology, we knew talking specs and pixels in the abstrac...
OnlyNans
Agency: Zeno London
Client: Ofcom
70% of UK 13 to 24-year-olds* have seen harmful content on social media in the past three months, but few report it and most scroll on by. This desensitisation leads to acceptance that social media platforms are places ‘where negative stuff just happens’. And the cycle of harm continues. As the regulator for UK-based video-sharing plat...
Opportunities to Save
Agency: W Communications
Client: Anthony Nolan
For Anthony Nolan, W Communications transformed the complicated subject matter of blood cancer and the stem cell donation crisis into a bold, influencer powered, content campaign that saved lives. Targeting a notoriously difficult to reach young male audience, our ‘Opportunities to Save’ campaign increased average annual donations sign...
BEST USE OF PLANNING, STRATEGY AND EVALUATION
A catalyst for action to improve women’s health
Agency: Brands2Life
Client: Hologic
Women’s health is more critical than ever, so Hologic, a global medical technology company, sought to effect change. Because ‘what gets measured, gets acted upon’, it created The Hologic Global Women’s Health Index, the world’s first and largest data set of women’s health. Our challenge was to raise awareness amongst influential UK sta...
Menopause Monologues
Agency: Ogilvy/The Pharm
Client: Boots UK
Boots took a traditionally taboo subject unnecessarily tainted with secrecy, and leveraged multichannel communications, and comedy, to generate an emotively powerful conversation – to create a campaign that went beyond the headlines. By working with six famous women we created Menopause Monologues, relatable stories anyone can watch...
Read Between the Lines
Agency: Help for Heroes
One in three veterans have felt suicidal yet research shows that veterans are less likely to ask for help compared to the general public. We believe one life taken by suicide is one too many. That’s why we’re on a mission to create suicide-safer communities where veterans and their families get the support they need. Read Between the ...
Two Truths And A Lie
Agency: SHOOK for UK for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency Charity
Fish and chips. Marks and Spencer’s. Queen. All British icons. All only here thanks to refugees. At a time when anti-refugee rhetoric hit a new low, this campaign reminded the UK refugees have always positively shaped our society and culture. Using a strategic model about disinformation and beliefs, it armed the Brits who supp...
BEST USE OF A SMALL BUDGET
Boys Boys Boys
Agency: WongDoody
Client: Both&
Imagine not feeling at home in your own body. Not being able to look in the mirror. This is part of being transgender. Pioneering fashion brand Both& makes clothes specifically designed to create masculine silhouettes. We needed to introduce the brand and empower transmen with a moment of feeling seen. We hijacked a globally r...
Escape the UK
Agency: Taylor Herring
Client: easyJet holidays
As the cost of living spiralled, we wondered if it could be cheaper to power down the boiler, cancel the weekly supermarket delivery and jet off to the sun? Turns out, yes… Working with easyJet holidays, we created a month-long, all-inclusive ‘Escape the UK’ break in to the Stella Gardens Resort in Egypt. The holiday was fastidiousl...
King Charles III of Chocolate
Agency: Taylor Herring
Client: Mars Wrigley
Superdrug Shop Smart
Agency: Evoke MInd+Matter
Client: Superdrug
The rise in food banks has been well documented. But in 2022, as the cost-of-living crisis deepened, hygiene poverty emerged as a real issue. And nobody was talking about it. Enter Shop Smart – a small budget PR campaign – that made Superdrug the first health and beauty retailer to freeze prices and donate essential items across the UK...
CITY & CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS
10 Point Plan
Agency: OVO
When the energy crisis took hold, panic gripped the nation, but no one had a solution. We needed a strong message to cut through the noise and push the Government to deliver real action. OVO achieved this by announcing its 10-Point Plan which would help stabilise the energy system. We ran an integrated public affairs, communications an...
50th Anniversary of Women’s Admittance to the Trading Floor
Agency: Edelman Smithfield
Client: London Stock Exchange plc
London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) marked the 50th Anniversary of Women’s Admittance to the Trading Floor in 2023 with a multi-faceted communications campaign. The campaign included the commissioning of research exploring the economic impact of women in the City over the past 50 years, extensive media outreach and an iconic London ...
From Bandwidth to Bad Actors
Agency: FleishmanHillard UK
Client: Akamai
How do you un-typecast a brand? That was FleishmanHillard’s essay question. Its client, Akamai, had become so well-known for its content delivery and edge computing innovation, future ventures risked being eclipsed by it. As it focused growth efforts on its cybersecurity offer, Akamai needed a strategic communications partner to ...
The IBM Banking Insider for IBM EMEA
Agency: Weber Shandwick
Having developed strong relationships with the EMEA banking sector, IBM turned to Weber Shandwick to transform their conversations from technical, functional solutions into deep client storytelling. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, we uncovered the topics of conversation of most interest to business decision makers – from...
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Scammer House of Horrors
Agency: Taylor Herring
Client: NatWest
We leveraged Halloween to bring the dangers of real financial scams to life and make this taboo topic truly engaging. Using genuine customer case studies, we created a trilogy of horror stories titled Scammer House of Horrors – complete with original illustrations and available to download free via the NatWest website. Acclaimed ...
The Financial Health of the Nation: The Barclays Consumer Spending Index
Agency: Barclays and MHP Group
Over the course of the past year, this Barclays PR campaign became the barometer of the nation’s economic health (used by the Bank of England), and a centrepiece of Barclays’ communications. We turned transaction data into national talking points, generated 6,000+ press clippings and became recognised by top-tier journalists and financ...
Transorming Britain's Homes: Barclays Greener Home Reward
Agency: Barclays and MHP Group
2022 saw a national effort to lower Britain’s energy use in the face of a supply crunch. Barclays launched a market-leading new product, which will ultimately help drive a measurable reduction in carbon emissions by UK homes and assist Britain’s net zero transition. Barclays’ communications team convinced the business to increase inves...
Women & Retirement Report
Agency: Scottish Widows
With economic conditions exacerbating the gender gap in pension savings, Scottish Widows launched a multi-channel campaign to urge the industry to provide more support and advice for women, particularly Black and ethnic minority women, struggling to save for retirement. Launching with fresh research looking at UK women’s attitudes towa...
HEALTHCARE: ETHICAL & OTC CONSUMER
Period Crunch
Agency: COW
Client: Intimina
Research revealed that women are still too uncomfortable to talk about periods and period health with family. 77% of women have never talked about it at a place where the household regularly sits together to talk: the kitchen table. Introducing Period Crunch from Intimina, the taboo-busting breakfast cereal specifically created to br...
The Truth. Undressed
Agency: Evoke MInd+Matter, AnalogFolk and EssenceMediaCom
Client: Bayer. Canesten
Introducing Canesten UK’s ‘The Truth, Undressed’ - a ground-breaking EDUCATION-AT-SCALE initiative. In a first, we partnered with PSHE Association, the national curriculum education body, to break down the misconceptions and taboos that surround vulval anatomy and vaginal health. Using unedited, real-life photographs of vulvas of all s...
Women’s Health & Wellness Partner
Agency: The Academy
Client: Holland & Barrett
With an ambitious strategy to reposition itself from a retail to a service brand, Holland & Barrett has stepped forward to fulfil a national need and become a trusted women’s health and wellness partner. Our insight-led PR programme has introduced vital free services, support programmes and product solutions that have genuinely helped ...
INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS AND EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Let's TUI It
Agency: MSL UK
Client: TUI
Last year the world opened up again, but TUI was still dealing with the impact of furloughs and redundancies. Morale was low, new talent and even current colleagues needed to be convinced to work in an uncertain industry. How could TUI win back talent during the biggest crisis the travel sector has ever seen? How could we unite and ree...
No7 Future Renew™ Damage Reversal franchise – internal colleague launch
Agency: Boots and No7 Beauty Company
Following 15 years of research, the No7 Future Renew™ franchise launched on 12 April this year. With the potential to become No7’s biggest launch, we wanted to educate, engage and inspire 1,300 No7 advisors and 600 leaders and galvanise more than 50000 team members as advocates of the new range, in a new and innovative way. From the bi...
Winning Together Colleague Broadcast
Agency: Tesco, Teneo and ITN
Since Tesco launched its new purpose in 2021, we’ve seen continued volatility and the competitive environment has never been tougher. Tesco’s continued success depends on its workforce coming together as one team, united and guided by this purpose. So in early 2023, we set out to reach colleagues at scale to mobilise and re-energise th...
ISSUES AND REPUTATION MANAGEMENT
#TwinForHope
Agency: Universities UK International (UUKi)
Hikers Against Hatred
Agency: The Romans
Client: Adidas x Wiggle
A group of Muslim hikers came in for some terrible racist abuse while out walking in the countryside. We were outraged. And so during Ramadan 2023 we partnered with them to signpost the direction of Mecca along National Trust walks to show that our countryside is everyone’s countryside. We even released the world’s first all-weather pr...
MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS: AUTOMOTIVE AND TRANSPORT
Green Car Cross Code
Agency: Kindred
Client: ZenAuto
The UK is well on its way to a zero emissions future, and yet media conversation remains dominated by negativity. ZenAuto wanted to change the narrative and engage families on the topics that really matter to them to support the switch to electric. We created the Green Car Cross Code – an updated set of guidelines for kids, d...
Helmet Hair Salon
Agency: Words + Pixels
Client: Lime
Lime is the UK's leading e-bike and e-scooter provider, but as the business grew, it needed to focus on educating riders about safety and the benefits of alternative urban transport. Research revealed that one in five cyclists avoid helmets due to hair concerns, leading to less eco-friendly transport choices. To address this, we launch...
Hot Motor Bottles
Agency: Hope&Glory
Client: Dacia
We positioned Dacia as the great-value-no-hidden-costs brand by “trolling” our competitors. When BMW and Tesla announced that they would charge a subscription of features already included in customer’s cars, we had the perfect riposte. The campaign prompted a 31% increase in web traffic on launch day, an 11% increase in social traffi...
I Came By Train
Agency: Hope&Glory and Mother
Client: Trainline
We needed a campaign that encouraged younger people to take the train, particularly as commuting habits have shifted. We came up with #ICameByTrain: a multi-layered campaign that put Trainline at the heart of sustainable travel and our audiences’ news and social feeds. The campaign led a 37% uplift in 16-34 rail sales and a 42% u...
Pulling in the Right Direction
Agency: Mischief (MHP Group)
Client: Avanti
When Avanti instructed us to support their drive for hiring more female train drivers, there were more than a few leaves on the track. Post-pandemic infrastructure issues and industrial action created a hostile environment in which TOCs could not campaign without consumer backlash. ‘Pulling in the right direction’ changed that. The res...
MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS: CULTURE, MEDIA, SPORT AND TRAVEL
Crouchy Conducts the Classics
Agency: Taylor Herring
Client: Paddy Power
For the first ever ‘Winter World Cup’ we worked with Paddy Power to launch a festive album with a footie twist… Flanked by a 40-piece orchestra, former England striker Peter Crouch and opera star Paul Potts, joined forces to create a classical music album that featured festive remakes of terrace chants like ‘Engerland, Engerland’ an...
Hikers Against Hatred
Agency: The Romans
Client: Adidas x Wiggle
A group of Muslim hikers came in for some terrible racist abuse while out walking in the countryside. We were outraged. And so during Ramadan 2023 we partnered with them to signpost the direction of Mecca along National Trust walks to show that our countryside is everyone’s countryside. We even released the world’s first all-weather pr...
Play-Doh Parenting is Messy
Agency: PrettyGreen
Client: Hasbro
Play-Doh is a bit messy (if you didn’t already know) and despite messy play having HUGE benefits for kids’ imagination and creativity, parents are still leaving the Play-Doh in the cupboard. Yep, Play-Doh has a consideration problem! Leaning into a negative brand perception is always brave. Play-Doh’s Parenting is Messy campaign ...
MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS: TRAVEL, LEISURE , LIFESTYLE AND HOSPITALITY
Be Yourself... Celebrating Individuality through Uniforms
Agency: Tin Man
Client: Virgin Atlantic
When you land 2000+ articles globally in three days, you know you’ve made an impact. But when you genuinely make a difference to a company’s people and customers… that’s what makes a campaign special. To cement Virgin Atlantic as the most inclusive airline, we listened to our people, ripped up the uniform rulebook, allowing them ...
Country Music
Agency: Golin
Client: Premier Inn
The crashing of waves on a Cornish beach, the sound of bees buzzing around a Suffolk country garden, hedgehogs snuffling in a Midlands hedgerow... In a bid to help the nation rest easy and consider Premier Inn for their next countryside break, we launched the world’s first ‘country’ music radio station. Quite literally capturing ...
Nemesis: Campaign to Close a Legend
Agency: Smoking Gun
Client: Alton Towers Resort
Customer research shows that ride closures are a major sentiment detractor for theme parks. Closing Alton Towers Resort’s world famous Nemesis had potentially huge reputational and commercial risks. Through first-class storytelling, we turned the temporary closure into an activation that successfully kick-started the ride’s next cha...
MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS: FMCG, HEALTH, BEAUTY, RETAIL AND FASHION
#MerkyFC
Agency: Hope&Glory
Client: adidas and #Merky
#Merky FC: a partnership between adidas and Stormzy’s #Merky Foundation will see real change in representation off the pitch in the football industry. The campaign achieved over 200 pieces of editorial coverage, including 30 pieces across national broadcast, print and online titles. As a result there were over 35,000 visits to th...
Boys Boys Boys
Agency: WongDoody
Client: Both&
Imagine not feeling at home in your own body. Not being able to look in the mirror. This is part of being transgender. Pioneering fashion brand Both& makes clothes specifically designed to create masculine silhouettes. We needed to introduce the brand and empower transmen with a moment of feeling seen. We hijacked a globally r...
Love or Hate, The unborn baby edition
Agency: W Communications & adam&eveddb
Client: Marmite
For longstanding client Marmite, W Communications and adam&eveddb daringly utilised 4D ultrasound baby scanning technology to find the UK’s ultra-early lover and haters. Integrated in approach, our unborn baby campaign would traverse TV, traditional media, social media, and dark social pre-natal parenting groups all in the name of winn...
One's (still) Lovin' It
Agency: Ready10
Client: McDonald's
We convinced McDonald’s to celebrate a right royal year by changing its iconic tagline to “one’s lovin’ it” and rescored the five-note jingle with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, delivering a multi-channel campaign across TV, radio, press, outdoor, CRM, social, and in-store with PR in its bones. But it wasn’t quite over… …beca...
NOT-FOR-PROFIT
#NotComingHome
Agency: Red Consultancy
Client: Centrepoint
Youth homelessness charity Centrepoint needed a Winter campaign to generate coverage and donations. However, with Christmas vs the World Cup, it was going to be a fight for column inches. So we used the power of English football culture to our own ends. With chants of “It’s Coming Home” being heard across the nation, we shone a ligh...
Backpack to the Future
Agency: Kindred
Client: IET
Engineering has a ‘hard hat problem’. Synonymous with men in construction apparel, the look is outdated and bad for business. Only 12% of engineers are female and our growing STEM skills gap is costing £1.5bn annually. ‘Engineer a Better World’ (EABW) is the IET’s yearly campaign, targeting 5-13yos and caregivers, to challenge these ...
He's Coming Home
Agency: Mischief (MHP Group)
Client: Women's Aid
The Women’s Aid insight that instances of domestic abuse rise during major sporting events is a story that’s been told before. But that doesn’t mean it’s a story we should stop telling. We needed to build on this narrative, and use innovative means to propel it further. The integrated channel strategy encouraged action and support, ...
When your world stops. Ty Hafan is there.
Agency: Cowshed
Client: Ty Hafan
A family's whole world stops when a child receives a terminal diagnosis. It stops when they realise they must consider end of life care. Again, when they lose their child. Talking about end-of-life care – a children’s charity first – and putting family fundraisers at the heart of its Christmas appeal, Ty Hafan raised £350k in 60 hours ...
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
Fight For What Counts
Agency: Daniel J Edelman
Client: The Global Fund
An emotive campaign to make people and problems that seem distant feel close and personal for the people that can help. The Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and malaria needed to raise $18bn. Our campaign “Fight For What Counts” elevated and championed the people that fight the world’s deadliest diseases every day, making it person...
Opposing Channel 4 privatisation
Agency: WPI Strategy
Client: PACT
WPI was appointed by Pact (Producers’ Alliance for Cinema and Television) to help fight off Channel 4 privatisation. The campaign ran for around a year until January 2023, with much of the activity concentrated in an eight-month period – from May 2022 to December 2022. Conservative MPs were targeted and deployed to sign open letters, ...
Saving the UK’s Cash Infrastructure
Agency: WA Communications
Client: NoteMachine
WA worked with leading UK ATM provider NoteMachine to secure a landmark commitment to legislate on access to cash, cultivating cross-party political champions and sustaining national media coverage to motivate Government to act.
Securing the Right to Rent with Pets
Agency: PLMR Group
Client: NOAH (National Office of Animal Health)
PLMR was engaged by the National Office of Animal Health (NOAH) to work alongside its in-house communications team to launch and execute the campaign, ‘Securing the Right to Rent with Pets: Making One Health Housing a Reality’. This was achieved when the Government published its Renters’ Reform Bill in May 2023.
Seizing Opportunities and Empowering Communities: Grayling's Support for Anglesey Freeport
Agency: Grayling
Client: Stena Line
Grayling’s public affairs campaign for Stena Line and Anglesey Council successfully secured freeport status for Anglesey against the odds. Our strategy focused on galvanising the local community to become advocates for the freeport, while emphasising its strategic importance in post-Brexit trade. We secured endorsements from 30 influen...
PUBLIC SECTOR
Campaign to vaccinate children aged 1-9 against polio
Agency: NHS North East London
Get the country talking about Bowel Cancer Screening!
Agency: Freuds+
Client: NHS England
Detecting bowel cancer at the earliest stage makes you up to nine times more likely to be successfully treated. But one in three people in England do not return their NHS bowel cancer screening kits. To encourage more people to complete the test, Freuds+ developed an impactful PR campaign for NHS England with ex-Ground Force hosts Alan...
Over a Rainbow
Agency: Weber Shandwick
Client: Welsh Government
The 2022 FIFA World Cup was shrouded in debate around human rights, particularly for the world’s LGBTQ+ community. Having been assured by FIFA that rainbow items were allowed in stadiums, many fans headed to the first game wearing colours with pride. This was just 24 hours after teams were told they couldn’t wear OneLove armbands in th...
This Girl Can Beats the Barriers
Agency: 23red
Client: Sport England
2.4 million fewer women than men enjoy getting active. This Girl Can coined this the Enjoyment Gap – and they wanted to close it. To kickstart a call-to-arms, 23red delivered an activation that packed a punch. We asked women what stops them enjoying exercise, then turned these barriers into punch bags for an interactive boxing experien...
TECHNOLOGY
50 Shades of Ginger
Agency: Fight or Flight
Client: Roland DG
Roland’s innovative TrueVis prints the brightest, most accurate colours - even tricky oranges and reds. How could we demonstrate this simple product truth and make the TrueVis printer famous? No one understands the nuance of red and orange better than redheads, whose diverse hair colour covers a hugely broad spectrum of shades. And...
Creating a National Databank
Agency: Hope&Glory, Missive and Broadcast Revolution
Client: Virgin Media O2 and Good Things Foundation
Over 1.5 million homes remain without internet access, unable to connect with loved ones online, work and study remotely, or access vital digital services. We wanted to create a long-term solution to address data poverty. We launched the UK's first ever National Databank - like a food bank but for free mobile data - to tackle ...
Launching a UK-first environmental data centre technology
Deep Green
Agency: Apella Advisors
Our client, Deep Green, had a UK-first data centre technology, ready to scale, that could drastically reduce local businesses' and public swimming pools' energy bills and cut their carbon footprint by over 60%. Yet, they faced low awareness among potential customers for their computing services, sites for installation and investors. By...
Life. Subtitled.
Agency: Boldspace and Markettiers
Client: XRAI Glass
XRAI creates software powered by Augmented Reality, converting audio into visuals allowing a pair of smart glasses to turn speech into subtitles, in real-time, changing the lives for the deaf and hard of hearing community. XRAI came to Boldspace and Markettiers to develop a strategy to launch XRAI to the world. We were in an arms race ...
Project Heid: a new form of ‘graphic design’
Agency: W Communications
Client: Endura
For relatively unknown cycling brand Endura, W Communications boldly transformed trauma in the name of communicating complicated helmet technology. Featuring four real life brain injuries, authentic CAT scans and doctor’s neurological notes, our highly creative take on ‘graphic design’ resulted in a category defining triple digit sales...
People, Agencies & Teams
BEST AGENCY OUTSIDE LONDON (HEADQUARTERS OUTSIDE M25)
iseepr
iseepr’s goal is to develop as a team of unparalleled technology PR specialists in key global markets including fintech, payments, digital security and technology standardisation. The company is building a strong reputation via word-of-mouth, by delivering exceptional work and measurable results. Through Covid and the recent global dow...
Smarts
Founded in Holywood, Co. Down in 1990, Smarts has grown from a local Northern Irish PR agency into a global PR and creative agency. Over the past 12 months, we’ve grown revenue by 26%; retained 100% of our clients and won six new ones; spent almost £300,000 on external staff training and development; devoted £500,000 of staff time to c...
The Jargon Group
Founded in 2009 as Jargon PR, the Jargon Group is an award-winning, international PR agency group which specialises in B2B technology media relations. The Group has 35 employees delivering world-class campaigns for over 70 retained clients. Building on previous deals, Jargon Group has bought two businesses over the last 12 months, acqu...
NEW CONSULTANCY OF THE YEAR
3THINKRS
3THINKRS is an agency on a mission to ‘reinvent how we work, learn and enjoy agency life’. It thrives on challenging the status-quo, cross-agency collaboration, and peak performance delivery. It has cultivated an adventurous, nomadic, peak performance culture, which is so beyond the norm that it warranted coverage in the Financial Time...
Five not 10
Five not 10’s on a mission to simplify PR for complicated brands. Both in the way it builds strategies and in the way they’re implemented. Why say something in 10 words when five will do? In doing so, the agency balances growth with employee well-being, consigning the “Sunday scaries” to history. Working for Five not 10 means looking f...
M&C Saatchi Fabric
M&C Saatchi Fabric weaves brands into the fabric of culture. Recognising the enormous growth of the lifestyle space, M&C Saatchi Fabric was founded in 2021 to make brands culturally relevant through the things that form the fabric of our everyday lives. The earned-first agency enables brands to connect consumers to each-other through...
SPECIALIST CONSULTANCY OF THE YEAR
Battenhall
Battenhall is the communications agency for the social media age, and this year saw the agency deliver record growth, investment and client innovation. Our mission to focus on innovating through technology, citizenship and social media drove this year’s performance, as we diversified our services and client sectors, and invested more...
Blurred
What did we set out to achieve during the period? Put simply: CLEAR BLUE WATER between us and the rest of the industry; in terms of our specialist ESGP positioning, but also our purposeful ethos. With the former, we’d do this by landing our specialist subject matter expertise, and the latter, by clearly, openly and purposefully walking...
Fight or Flight
In just three years, Fight or Flight has brought energy, ambition and swagger to the B2B category, attracting and inspiring a new breed of bold, brave B2B clients determined to do standout, breakthrough work. The firm and its clients have proven that creativity can drive commercial impact for B2B businesses, and also that the market is...
Harvard
Despite being the end of the Covid era, 2022 bought with it some new challenges, especially for a tech specialist agency. Nothing could prepare us for Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘year of efficiency’ and how quickly and how devastatingly that would hit the tech industry, our clients, and in turn our agency. Now, you could think this is setting u...
Words + Pixels
A small team of 20 can achieve a lot when they put their mind to it, have strong direction, a sense of purpose and incredible, diverse talent. Words + Pixels are that team. We are a challenger brand for challenger brands and make it our mission to support businesses with exceptional PR services they would not usually have had access to...
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION CHAMPION
Blurred
We believe in diversity - not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because we believe that diverse talent is key to us truly realising our potential. Our clients have complex problems, requiring different experiences and world views that simply do not and can not come from one single sector of society. Our team is truly diverse...
Ketchum UK
2022 saw Ketchum UK delivering record-breaking growth and 88% employee retention – proving that our DE&I commitments are not an impediment to business performance, but an accelerator of commercial growth. By delivering and driving DE&I strategies for our employees and clients, we’re creating lifelong equitable, commercial and inclusive...
PRWEEK’S YOUNG GAME CHANGER OF THE YEAR
Jessie Brooks
Jessie May Brooks is true star in the Golin office who has made our work better and our agency better. Since joining Golin she has created our new influencer proposition and leveraged it to drive deeper strategic relationships with key clients and win new business. She was also central to the Persil team that won a Cannes Lions - for i...
Joshua Vine-Lott
During Joshua Vine-Lott's four years at Aurora he has fundamentally changed the way we reach, engage and empower our audiences, particularly patients. He has a profound understanding of the impact PR and communications can have on positively changing health behaviours, and continuously strives to expand his skills to continuously a...
Malini Bhargav
Malini works to deliver depth and meaningful impact for every client and on each project she works on. She works with some of the world's biggest companies d to provide strategic advisory on how they can tackle their most pressing sustainability challenges. Malini has always been driven by the lack of South Asian female leaders in th...
Gold Awards
SMALL CONSULTANCY OF THE YEAR
89up
89up is Europe's first impact agency. We campaign for great causes, build technology, tackle complex problems and inspire action. 89up was founded with a clear mission: to create a powerful integrated communications agency for the world’s most important causes. In the last eight years, we’ve become one of the fastest growing companies ...
John Doe Group
If 2021 was a year of John Doe bubbling up, 2022 was the year we exploded. With offices across London, Manchester and Glasgow giving our integrated, culture-first offer a pan-UK footprint, we created something unique. Whilst PR remains at the heart of what we do, the extension of our services has seen us take on ad agencies to win ATL ...
Manifest
Manifest is an independent consultancy with a mission to build brands that change the world. Since 2009, Manifest has delivered award-winning creative work for a broad spectrum of businesses, all looking to supercharge the strategic impact of their organisations through PR and comms, including some of the world’s biggest brands. ...
Tin Man
2022 was an exceptional year for Tin Man. 58% growth, 9 client wins, 25% headcount growth, 75% increase in investment in our people. How did we do it? We focused on the purpose driven creative work at which we excel, we continued to live and breathe our ‘Comms with Heart’ ethos, supported our team and recognised the power and po...
MID-SIZED CONSULTANCY OF THE YEAR
Harvard
We know that over the last few years, we’ve grown year on year. We’ve had minimal client turnover, and a high staff retention rate. 2022 was not that year, and moving into 2023, these challenges have intensified. But, despite these challenges, we have stayed true to who we are, and our values too. We’ve been introspective and rebuilt –...
Smarts
Founded in Holywood, Co. Down in 1990, Smarts has grown from a local Northern Irish PR agency into a global PR and creative agency. Over the past 12 months, we’ve grown revenue by 26%; retained 100% of our clients and won six new ones; spent almost £300,000 on external staff training and development; devoted £500,000 of staff time to c...
LARGE CONSULTANCY OF THE YEAR
Brands2Life
2022 was Brands2Life’s best-ever year with record revenues, new business, awards, headcount, and societal contribution. It all started in 2020 when everyone here became an indirect shareholder through a majority-owned employee trust (EOT) and then fed into the five key goals that you’ll read about in this submission. Last year we...
Golin
Many of our clients saw us as nice people and a trusted pair of hands. Not that we're complaining, great to be trusted, but we also wanted to live our ethos - to create change that matters - through our creative work, bold thinking and delivering business impact. Change not just for clients, but for our people too. We created an open f...
MSL UK
We're providing the judges with our 23 for ‘23 and why we think MSL deserves to be shortlisted for Best Large Consultancy at this year’s PRWeek Awards and a shot at the big prize. We’ve grown revenue, running double digits at 12%, income per head has grown by £12k and 89% of our people say we have “an inclusive culture where difference...
W Communications
A phenomenal year for W Communications saw its entrepreneurial vision truly come of age. Building on 13 years of consecutive growth, it recorded its biggest ever year in both revenue and profit, against a backdrop of new investments in both our business and external businesses too. The record- breaking period (revenue up 33%, profits u...
IN-HOUSE TEAM OF THE YEAR
M&S Food
This is not just any In House PR team – this is the M&S Food In House PR team. Unlike many retailers, all national PR is run in house. With more than 100 years of PR experience, and five clocking up more than half of that with M&S, the passion for the brand delivers amazing results year on year. From highly creative social media campai...
Samsung UK
Since 2020, Samsung UK has been evolving its PR approach to shift consumer perceptions. Under the leadership of Lindsay Landi, Head of PR & Communications, we’ve moved from being perceived as a cold and corporate tech brand, to a culturally relevant ‘human’ brand championing DE&I in the tech industry. This involves shifting from a tech...
Uswitch
In 2022, the global energy crisis created significant uncertainty for Uswitch, a business primarily known for helping consumers save on their energy bills. Households could no longer switch, presenting an immediate impact on the P&L. Meanwhile, consumers were in a cost-of-living crisis and needed more clarity and advice. With the busin...
Virgin Media O2
Following the mega-merger of Virgin Media and O2 in 2021, and in a year when the cost-of-living crisis meant that essential services were more scrutinised than ever, the VMO2 External Communications team has delivered award-worthy coverage and campaigns, and delivered consistent counsel for two of the UK’s biggest brands during a perio...
IN-HOUSE TEAM OF THE YEAR (PUBLIC/THIRD SECTOR)
Kingston University
Kingston University’s public affairs team has pioneered a sector-leading campaign to champion ‘Future Skills’ – the skills required by both graduates and businesses alike to secure the long-term economic success of the UK. In addition to far-reaching impact with cross-party politicians and policymakers, the team’s work has directly led...
London North Eastern Railway
Following a structural reorganisation, the Communications function has been reshaped since May 2022 to focus on delivering excellence in Communications in the rail industry. Sitting separately from the marketing team (which is unusual in many in house functions), the team takes an integrated approach to external and internal communicat...
