by Johanna McDowell (@jomcdowell) LONDON: Saving the best until last seemed like the order of Friday’s agencies for the AdForum Worldwide Summit London. There were astonishingly good presentations by all three, diverse thinking and in depth creativity. We were ‘bowled over’.
VCCP
First up was VCCP, a very British agency with five offices on two continents: London, Berlin, Prague, Madrid and Sydney. Ranked no. 6 in the UK, VCCP employee churn stands at 19%, which is 11% below the industry average.
Clients include EasyJet, Meerkat Movies and O2 (its founding client). Its work is, quite simply, brilliant with one of its best campaigns for O2, “Be more dog”, winning accolade after accolade in the effectiveness space. It is opening in the US soon and, unlike the majority of its competitors, will be on the West Coast.
Exposure
Then on to Exposure, an agency born as PR and grown into integrated, and thus perfectly delivering on the “ideas that talk” concept that is the agency’s mission. With offices in London, New York and Tokyo, the agency has clients such as Microsoft and Jaeger on a worldwide basis, and both clients were prepared to stand up and provide great testimonials for the agency.
This was the only agency that did this at this summit — third-party endorsement is always a ‘standout’ item. “No one is more networked than Exposure,” said Colin Henry, CEO of Jaeger.
Exposure is strong on collaboration and always looks for “earned” media coverage, as opposed to bought — but, if it has to, it will also engage in bought media.
Forsman & Bodenfors
Final agency of the morning was Forsman & Bodenfors, the Swedish agency based in Gothenburg (Sweden’s second city). It talked to us about wanting to work with us as consultants as it sees our role as guiding the clients to select the appropriate agencies.
Exceptional work, exceptional methodologies and people — this agency is the most-creative agency (based on strength of wins) in the world with clients, such as Volvo Trucks and Volvo Cars, World Food Forum etc.
Highly successful financially, it shared its thinking with us in terms of what it wants to see as a totally different way of working with creative work, and illustrated this with some excellent examples around culture and thought.
Such was the level of this discussion, that the consultants — normally quite a chatty crowd — listened intently to probably one of the global masters in this area. I will be sharing some of the discussion with agency subscribers at our next agency masterclass next month.
Transfixed by its successes
Forsman is not an agency for every client, and it is very, very selective regarding clients it works with, but not in an arrogant way at all — with the greatest humility. Owned and run by the employees, Forsman is an agency to keep on watching; we have seen it three times at AdForum Summits and, every time we see it, we are transfixed by its successes.
And that was the final highlight of the summit!
Best
Johanna
@jomcdowell @agencyselection
#adforumsummit
Johanna McDowell is managing director of the Independent Agency Search and Selection Company (IAS), which stands at the forefront of the complex world of agency selection in South Africa, and she is one of the few experts driving this mediation and advisory service in SA and globally. Twice a year she attends AdForum Worldwide Summits as an international consultant, which helps her lead the SA advertising industry forward to keep in line with international trends and remain competitive. Follow her on Twitter at @jomcdowell.
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