Aloha from Portland,
As we cascade our way to the end of 2018, it’s a perfect time to take a look back—especially to the excellent work that agencies create throughout the year. To that end, we were proud to announce our Agency of the Year winners.
TBWA\Worldwide took the global honors this year (they won the same distinction in 2008) through a combination of strong work, a growing client roster and continued evolution, especially among its leadership. You might very well gravitate to some of Apple’s work from the network, but there is plenty more to explore.
Last year’s global winner, Wieden + Kennedy, took home the U.S. Agency of the Year prize. Though the agency’s Nike work (and, specifically, its Colin Kaepernick ad) received most of the attention, when looking under the hood, there are several reasons the honor was well-earned.
For those of you who went to SXSW this year, we guess that you probably heard about HBO’s epic Westworld activation. That’s courtesy of Adweek’s Breakthrough Agency of the Year, Giant Spoon. The agency had a fantastic year of captivating creativity and 70 percent growth.
You may be forgiven if you can’t get a certain terrible song out of your head courtesy Adweek’s International Agency of the Year, Rosapark. But admit it, it was great advertising for Monoprix—and the Paris agency proved it could play it funny and serious with some stellar work.
Want to find out how we crowned this year’s winners? Take a peek at this video featuring Adweek’s managing editor Stephanie Paterik and creativity and innovation editor David Griner.
Worth a read: The Adweek agencies team shared their predictions for 2019. There’s some good, bad and ugly.
Worth a watch: This holiday ad from Nord DDB isn’t the usual fare—but is a stunningly beautiful ad.
Keep it on your radar: GroupM isn’t exactly bullish on ad growth projections.
Making moves: Shane Atchison returned to the WPP fold as Wunderman’s first North American CEO, Ogilvy named new global and U.S. CCOs, Lynn Lewis is now CEO of UM in the U.S., Facebook’s former diversity lead is going to the 4As and Badger & Winters is heading to Plan A.
A big loss: Intel is shutting down its internal agency.
A big win: 72andSunny took it to the house (a football term), winning the NFL’s business after a decade with Grey.
Speaking of 72andSunny: 72U, the agency’s creative residency, created an installation on Venice Beach to put a spotlight on the plight of missing immigrant children.
We could use your help. We’re looking for the agency creative you liked the most this year. Please go here are tell us which ads or campaigns caught your fancy. We will choose a few to share soon.
Enjoy your weekend,
Doug Zanger
Senior Editor, Creativity + Agencies
