It has become agency tradition that we re-cap our year. It’s a chance to look back on the last twelve months that have flown by and to pick out a few favourite pieces of work from the hundreds we send out the door each year.
It hasn’t been an unmitigated success. There were a handful of pitches that we didn’t win. There are a few ideas on the cutting room floor that we loved but that clients didn’t buy. We also said farewell to some people we really didn’t want to lose (and hello to some people it has been a joy to welcome).
On the other hand, we leave 2024 as Agency of the Year for PR Moment, PR Week, the PRCA and Creative Moment (three times-over) as well as Best Agency to Work for according to PR Week, the PRCA and Campaign. But most of all, we did some really good work. These are (in the view of one of our team) our best bits …
We kicked off the year with one of the odder pieces of work. Having launched our first Uber Eats “Hosts” campaign in 2023 (with Ynyshir, the UK’s best restaurant), we took the platform to the next level welcoming Brooklyn Beckham to open a pop-up take away offering a range of his favourite dishes. The aspiring chef was a run-away sell-out.
The next campaign off the blocks was the first of many for Greggs. We partnered the brand with Uber Eats to create the “Bake Tray” – a riff on the famous chocolate selection – as a Valentine’s Day special. The romantic meal for two was available across the UK and became something of a meme. The highlight? Seeing Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards tucking-in live on GMB. You couldn’t make it up.
From there we moved to one of the biggest campaigns of the year – with The V&A. Helping to get more young people through their doors, we announced the museum’s desire to recruit a series of “advisors” on matters from Pokémon to Toby Jugs. However, it was the announcement that the role of “Taylor Swift Superfan Adviser” was on offer that took the world by storm. 20,000 applications later and a call from Taylor’s management to chat about an exhibition of tour outfits and we had a winner on our hands.
Onwards to Greggs again. Olly Murs got in touch. As you do. He wondered whether Greggs could arrange a treat for his wife (was it really for his wife?) catering their baby shower. Duly “Preggs” was born and a Greggs van was installed at the aforementioned celebrity’s home to dish out tasty treats for the assembled guests. Coverage was wall-to-wall across the gossip pages and nationals. And it was quite a lot of fun all-round.
Next to the first of many global campaigns delivered over the course of the year. This one for Carlsberg as we announced the release of 491 bottles of Carlsberg “Red Barley” – one to mark each of Jurgen Klopp’s games in charge of Liverpool Football Club as he announced he was stepping down as manager. Global coverage, dominance of share-of-voice and £126,000 raised for the LFC Foundation were the result.
A brief respite from work as the awards season got underway. Always a joy and a pleasure. And particularly joyous as it started with a series of agency awards with team picking up Campaign Agency of the Year Gold (a first having had bronze and silver in the past), PR Week Best Agency to Work For and PR Moment Agency of the Year. There were also wins for the work with campaigns by IKEA, Trainline, HMV, Uber, Dacia and NOW TV amongst those that picked up no fewer than 12 Sabre Awards and 8 PR Moment Awards. There was also news that our V&A campaign had scooped an impressive brace of Yellow Pencils from D&AD.
Next across to Pepsi for major global campaign number two for the brand (having earlier launched their new Visual Identity System worldwide) as we crashed football culture unveiling their “Where There’s A Ball There’s A Way” campaign featuring the likes of Vini Jr., Jack Grealish, Son Heung-min, Leah Williamson, Karen Carney and Vinnie Jones. Three shoots later and the campaign landed worldwide with editorial reach in the billions.
Next stop Intrepid Travel. We announced AdventurHER to challenge the stereotypes of what an adventurous person looks like – and call for greater female representation on travel television in a world where just 21% of screentime is given over to women. An exhibition and cracking national and lifestyle coverage were the result. Search for the brand was up 57% and site visits were up 20% the campaign analysis showed.
Sticking (loosely) to the travel theme, our next stand-out campaign was for Virgin Media O2 as we campaigned to help the nation avoid “getting burnt” when roaming over the summer. With a cheeky riff on Hailey Bieber’s Rhode case and a partnership with a suncare brand we had a campaign to be proud of. Research showed 8% of the UK population was aware of it which is pretty remarkable when you think about it.
From there to IKEA and towels where we have history. This time we created a cheeky response to Doja Cat’s Met Gala outfit with a speedy shoot in Wembley riffing on the lady in question’s get-up.
Altogether less spontaneous we worked with The Macallan on a campaign that has been 200 years in the making – as the brand celebrated a very big birthday during the course of 2024. Amongst the many campaigns we got away over the course of the year hosting Cirque du Soleil “SPIRIT” in The Macallan distillery was something of a highlight for the team (and the brand).
A quick shout-out at this point to a take-over performance of a different scale (and we’re not going to lie, calibre) as DJ Schak hosted an all-nighter in a Newcastle Greggs. It didn’t have quite the production values of Cirque x The Macallan. But it was a lot of fun and it did get an enormous amount of love on the socials.
Pausing briefly to catch our breath the IKEA team was at it again. This time they announced the retailer’s pet range by bringing back the Catalogue. This time as a Cat-alogue (with paired Dog-alogue). What’s more we partnered with a pets charity to make all of the models adoptable. Sales were up. All of our models found new homes. Success all-round.
From there we moved to another Pepsi campaign as Lenny Kravitz took to the stage at Wembley to perform in the Kick Off Show at the UEFA Champions League Final. Coverage once again went global in our third major international campaign of the year for the brand.
And speaking of celebrity legends we moved swiftly from Lenny Kravitz to … Arg. You might remember that Mark (Wright) and Spencer (Matthews) made an appearance for a retailer with a similar name to theirs’ combined? Well Argos needed a cheeky response and duly created one as Arg searched for his “Os”. In the end he found a Ros. Which was close enough.
It was at this point that we once again donned glad rags for an awards-related interlude. Seven Cannes Lions (for The V&A and CALM), three Purpose EMEA Awards (for Trainline and IKEA) and five PRCA Dare Awards (for The V&A, IKEA and VMO2) were the result. Not a bad haul at all.
And so it was back to the office and the work. In this case two of our more serious campaigns.
For Elvie we created the “Boob Tube”. There is still a huge stigma felt by women about breastfeeding and visibility is one way to combat this issue. So a carriage-full of breastfeeding mums took to the tube to raise awareness of the issue. Fantastically impactful images, remarkable love on the socials and a swathe of coverage was the result.
Taking the seriousness up to 11 we worked with CALM for one of the most important pieces of work that we do as an agency. An installation of 6,929 balloons made-up the “Missed Birthdays” installation at London’s Westfield – marking the birthdays missed by those who died by suicide in a bid to raise awareness of the issue and create a national conversation. This Morning broadcast live from the installation, coverage was widespread, awareness was raised.
Following that we moved to the US of A. Our first campaign for LEGO went live with much fanfare as the team took over LA Zoo to install a series of “big builds” featuring characters from LEGO DreamZzz. Hundreds of families got involved, sales rose, media coverage was fantastic and national reach was delivered by some top-class parenting vloggers. We repeated this trick with a takeover of Toronto Zoo a month or so later.
We followed that up with a series of global campaigns for Uber to help develop and then land their “Go Anywhere” proposition and drive more people to the platform to book places, trains and a variety of other means of transport. The team created partnerships to offer Seaplanes (in Scotland), Yachts (in Ibiza), Uber Bubbles (in the Champagne region) and Safari (in South Africa). The press trips were fabulous.
In what was a busy year for the Uber team we followed that up with the opening of the “55k Tonnes” – taking over a Westminster boozer and turning it into a Carbon-neutral pub to mark the thousands of tonnes of carbon taken out of London’s atmosphere as a result of Uber’s electrification drive.
The lead up to the festive season post-summer can mean only one thing. Yep, more awards. Highlights were taking home Agency of the Year at both the PR Week Awards and the PRCA Awards (a feat we haven’t achieved since 2014 so it was nice to repeat it a decade on). There were also campaign wins with six trophies at the PR Week Awards, four at the PRCA Awards (and a Contribution to PR medal for Jo – the highlight of the year and richly deserved recognition). There were also three wins at the Creative Moment Awards (as well as three Agency of the Year gongs) and another three at the CorpComms Awards. Oh and ten on the shortlists at Eurobest which led to six wins including one Grand Prix. We’ll take that haul.
We found “GrumpyGran” for IKEA and worked with the older gamer as an ambassador for the retailer’s gaming range. The coverage went wild across the media with (at final count) around 330 pieces of editorial for the campaign.
We followed that one up with a new channel for dogs – christened “Dogglebox” – for NOW and Sky to help pets (and their owners) get through the fireworks season. For a quick and simple story it absolutely cleaned-up across the media generating hundreds of pieces of coverage and attracting a few viewers along the way.
From there to the Christmas run-in. First to Greggs to announce their follow-up collaboration with Fenwick – the iconic Newcastle department store. The Greggs x Fenwick Champagne Bar was a sell-out success and resulted in features across The Guardian, The Times, Daily Telegraph and a double-page in You Magazine demonstrating that Greggs can posh it up when it wants to.
Finally to the end of the year and Pokémon where the team created one of our most ambitious campaigns. Delightedly we are now Guinness World Record holders having created the World’s Longest Livestream Unboxing. Thirty influencers from across the European markets we look after for the brand unboxed the brand’s most recent card pack release for no fewer than 24 hours straight – all live. 250,000 people tuned-in and 2.5 million people followed long on the creators’ social channels.
And finally to see us out it was back to team Greggs. The festive collaboration that no-one saw coming and our first Christmas ad. We brought in Nigella Lawson to front the brand’s first “Christmas ad”. For a PR-led story it delivered incredible results. And as an ad it actually performed remarkably well with System One giving it top-ratings within its category. Not something that anyone had on their 2024 bingo card that one. But much entertainment to cap-off what has been a pretty remarkable year.
And that was basically it. There were at least another twenty or thirty pieces of work I could have included in this round-up. From Meta, Laphroaig, Etsy, Sainsbury’s, Atlantis, or Norwegian Cruise Lines and pretty much all of the clients that we’re proud to work with. But those are the ones that made the cut for all sorts of reasons. It’s been another fantastic year. One well worth looking back on. And now we can’t wait for 2025 …
