Adline Annual Review

However, it wasn’t a complete change from previous awards initiatives. The Review has retained such illustrious gongs as Agency of the Year and Media Independent of the Year. One of the new additions, however, is the \"Champagne Moments\", which are listed later on.

As well as picking up their awards in front of a packed crowd, winners have also received a year’s free membership to the Circle Club in Manchester. So whether you were at the event and just get a kick out of seeing your name in print or for those of you who simply missed out on the event, here is Adline’s Review of 2004 with all the key news and awards that were presented on the night.

JANUARY

The year began with a series of account moves for agencies residing within the Adline patch. MediaVest tucked into £17m worth of accounts, including the £2m Screwfix business, McCann-Erickson had one eye on the Britannia Building Society account and The English Group in Bath was toasting its success for picking up the coveted BAFTA account.

Elsewhere, Dominic Barker left Opus to join Capital Radio, while Guardian Media Group relaunched Jazz as Smooth and put the £1m rebrand out to pitch, later appointing Brilliant Media and Clear Marketing.

FEBRUARY

The big story of the month was on food giants Princes, which faced allegations of plagiarism after the launch of new packaging. It was also busy on the account moves front. Bahlsen, makers of Choco Leibniz, appointed Big Communications, Brazen PR was chosen by Vimto soft drinks to promote its brands and newly launched agency Thunk announced its first clients. Birmingham design agency Boxer redesigned and launched packaging for MacDonalds after winning an 18-way pitch in Chicago.

Following the Granada and Carlton merger, the new structure started to shake down. One-time rivals David Croft and James Rice are now working together within the expanded organisation.

Like A River recorded one of Britain’s largest hauls at the Mobius Awards, including Best of Show. The prizes were for work that included a run of ads the agency had placed in Adline.

Also, Opus appointed Phil Parkinson as new regional director of Opus Manchester while Mike Williams started his new role as chairman of Universal McCann.

MARCH

Bray Leino had a spring in its step, consolidating its relationship with Wrigley by producing TV work for Wrigley’s Extra, Matalan gave a boost to the Northern industry by appointing Connectpoint, and McConnells landed the £1.5m Midlands Co-op media brief, fighting off Universal McCann and Brilliant.

Elsewhere, Media Sales Network won the sales brief for the Emap Espirit and Hemisphere was appointed by War Museum North to create the exhibition and marketing for The Greater Game: War and Sport.

Also, Pontin’s appointed Connectpoint to its £2m marketing account and BJL launched a through-the-line campaign for British Airways. However, the closure of Hill House Hammond meant the loss of a major account for Big and CBLM. The Derbyshire Building Society also moved its £3m ad account out of the Midlands in favour of London. McCann-Erickson Manchester also lost the £23m Shop Direct account.

In other news, Golley Slater acquired Northern Profile in a seven-figure deal, Dig for Fire was appointed by Thomas Cook to launch cruisesdirect2u, and Media Square continued its growth with the acquisition of Hudson Advertising & Design and the launch of BANC.

APRIL

It may have been April, but Beattie Media was no fool when it picked up the Leeds United PR brief. A new client to the scene, electronic retailer epinx.com, handed work to LOVE, PHD Compass and Brazen PR. Also, Sass launched new advertising for photography client Venture UK.

Digital agency SWAMP launched a web-based project for Umbro, while Big won a six-way pitch for Virgin Cola. New agency BANC picked up accounts including Lastminute.com and Leeds Metro, while Paul Doran and Dylan Moran left Poulter Partners to launch their own agency – Doran Moran.

The MPA Roses Student Awards, organised by the Marketeer Association, staged a networking and judging event for students, tutors and creatives in April.

At the Robert Horne Design Review, Home won the Financial and Client polls, while The Chase won the Peer Poll and LOVE won the Creative Poll. However, The Design Consultancy of the Year 2004 was Thompson Design.

The news that dominated the pages, however, was the Adline Sales Team of the Year results, which were based on a poll of media buyers. These awards were presented throughout the night and can be seen to the left.

MAY

In May, the trend of account moves and gains continued. The hair product brand, ghd, appointed Propaganda to handle its £5m account, while McCann-Erickson lost the £3m Teacher Training account, which went to London, but picked up the Consumer Direct account.

CheethamBellJWT hit the headlines as it was appointed to create the Space Kitchen and Bathroom TV campaign worth £1m, while in a breakaway from BANC, Joe Chetcuti and Chris David launched Front Ideas in Sheffield. The new agency was immediately appointed to the Vodafone roster.

The big event for the month was the 24th Annual Roses Advertising Awards. This will be remembered for design firm True North taking the Grand Prix for its Imperial War Museum North work. Creative heavyweights such as BDH\\TBWA, McCann-Erickson and CheethamBellJWT also helped ensure the 2004 event was very much a vintage year.

JUNE

The new BJL management team scored an immediate success in June by landing a British Airways global rebranding project, as McCann-Erickson Manchester played a key part in the acquisition of the £19m More Than account, sharing the business with its London office. Other account wins included Brazen winning Jockey, The House retaining Jack Daniels, and Different winning Tommee Tippee. The NWDA announced its six roster agencies – Hemisphere, Creative Lynx, Madhouse, Loins Furnival, Refinery Marketing and Kaleidoscope.

Meanwhile Mediacom North launched Mediacom North Connect and won the planning and buying account for Redcats UK, while Tamarind Wilson left Poulters and joined Tequila.

JULY

Come July and Thompson got set to launch the new Morrison’s Choice brand and won work from Harvey Nichols against a raft of London agencies, BJL’s run of success continued with new work launched for client Max Power, and PWLC launched TV work for South Yorkshire Fire Service.

Elsewhere, MediaVest Manchester held off Carat in its bid to retain the £5m Chupa Chups account, Brahm expanded after acquiring Teamwork Marketing, and Advertising Principles became Principles Agency.

Also, Barbara Moyses decided to leave her role at Feather Brooksbank after 30 years in the media business, AWA and MAP joined forces to create AWA-MAP and Paul Carroll and Nathalie Bagnall quit Communique.

AUGUST

Key events included the Manchester Evening News moving its account from CBJWT to LOVE, which had also been tasked with designing the logo for Red Nose Day. Also, SWAMP launched a new website for Heinz, Sass picked up the £1m integrated campaign for Harrison Beds, McCann-Erickson won Chablis, and Andrew Thomas, formerly of Universal McCann Manchester, joined Pavilion Communications as MD.

SEPTEMBER

Account wins continued apace. Brilliant Manchester secured the seven-figure media account for the Co-operative Retail Group’s non-food division, Harrison Cowley won the O’Neils pub chain account, BJL launched £1m campaign for British Airways World Cargo and BDH\\TBWA launched its first work for Safeway.

In other news, Northern agencies competed against several London firms for the £1m rebranding project for Bradford Centre Regeneration and the Roses Design Awards took place in Manchester. True North became the first agency to make it a double by winning the Grand Prix at both Roses awards in the same year, while The Chase ran away with the lion’s share of the awards booty, winning four Golds and four Silvers.

OCTOBER

Come Autumn and Communique PR was pleased to announce retaining the Velcro account, Thompson won the pitch to handle the branding of Leeds, and Rees Bradley Hepburn was appointed to create a campaign to promote Birmingham.

Other account stories making the news pages included the first major win for AWA-MAP, which picked up the £3m Planet Group Ltd account, Barr Soft Drinks turned to BANC Leeds to handle its new media account for Irn Bru and The English Group was re-appointed by BAFTA to handle all design for its 2005 awards. Leading commercial property investment company Bruntwood also made the news after choosing Code Computer Love to develop its new website. Elmwood landed a major Australian retail account, Coles Myer and the Cream Awards took place in Birmingham, with the Grand Prix gong heading to Nick Galanides.

NOVEMBER

Showerlux UK moved its marketing account to Dig for Fire and Yorkshire Forward kicked off a search for a roster of agencies to handle its communications account. In other news, Danny Brooke-Taylor announced he was leaving BDH\\TBWA to join the creative department of TBWA\\ in London and LOVE created a new youth brand of Cancer Research UK called TODAY.

Meanwhile, the Iceland Forum – a concept devised by the Marketeer Association and Adline – took place, with agencies and clients getting the opportunity to network under the Northern Lights.

The Marketeer Association, chaired by Brian Childs, also agreed a charter and started work devising a campaign to promote marketing services companies in the North of England.

Safe in the knowledge that you’ve brushed up on all the industry news for December earlier in this issue, it’s time to concentrate on some of the awards that were presented at the Review.

In a special award, radio group Opus announced the winner of its Adlisten feature. A select panel of judges picked out Wieden & Kennedy’s Honda ad as the winner, after seven months of radio ad reviews. Commenting on the initiative, Opus’ Phil Parkinson said: \"Adlisten is our small contribution to driving radio creativity and what better vehicle than the region’s principal marketing magazine.\"

In a true \"people’s award\", Receptionist of the Year was presented to Rachel Davis from Propaganda for her immense contribution to the company and overwhelming popularity among the staff.

Production Manager of the Year was awarded on the back of research among leading print companies and paper suppliers. Matt Beardsell from LOVE was rewarded for having a great sense of patience while under pressure.

On the new awards front, the MPA Young Brain of the Year was created in conjunction with the MPA and the Marketeer Association, with the help of Unit Communications. In recognising up-and-coming strategic, planning and account handling talent, Propaganda’s Laura Kynaston was awarded for her achievements.

Sponsored by Orchard and Suits, the Marketing Services Agency Head of the Year was presented to Mike Phillipson of PWLC for, among other achievements, rapidly building a new force in advertising.

Julian Kynaston of Propaganda was then presented with the Marketing Personality of the Year 2004 award for raising the profile of both his agency and his clients.

Next up are the awards for marketing services agencies for each region. In the South, the award went to The English Group. In the Midlands, Big Communications landed the accolade. Despite fierce competition, the Yorkshire award went to Brahm, while in the North East Different was presented with the award. The North award, which was sponsored by Viacom Outdoor, went to BDH\\TBWA.

Start-up of the year went to Uber, which in its short history has managed to bag a client list that includes DFS, Mortal Kombat Deception, Bosch, and Leprosy charity, and has produced consistently high quality creative work.

The Top Gear gong, which has been developed to recognise the agency that has stepped up its performance and made significant progress and growth, went to Propaganda.

Adline felt that it was important to reflect back on the creative achievements of agencies in 2004 by handing out two awards. First of all, Adline wanted to identify a piece of creativity so genius-like that it warranted the Eureka Award. An award given to the best creative solution of the year. The winner of this accolade was Unsuitable for its brilliant Update Your Records item.

It would also be impossible to look back on 2004 without paying homage to True North’s magnificent work for Imperial War Museum North. In a special acknowledgement, Adline has handed True North the ‘piece of work you wish you’d done’ award.

Attention now turns to the specific sector awards. Starting with PR Agency of the Year, Adline rewarded Brazen for gaining a succession of new accounts and establishing itself as the fastest growing PR agency in the UK.

In the New Media Agency of the Year category, Code Computer Love took the prize. From relative new boys to lords of the new media manor, Code has grown substantially in both size and stature over the last twelve months. Always renowned for producing solutions that mix usability, creativity and eye-catching design, the team has stepped up a gear in 2004.

TDA was handed the Direct Marketing Agency of the Year after consolidating its position as one of the UK’s leading direct marketing firms, with new business wins such as Cosmos, BUPA and Norwich Union, as well as producing high-profile campaigns for brands such as HBOS and Nationwide.

In another award sponsored by Orchard and Suits, the Client Satisfaction Poll is a result of a massive research project conducted by MRUK on behalf of Adline. It involved contacting over 1,000 clients who use suppliers outside of London in a bid to identify 100 marketing services firms for publication in a new book called the Recommended Agency Guide.

Although this research was designed to allow us to find 100 agencies for inclusion in the book, the process did also mean that we could identify one agency that really stood out as Client Company of the year. That agency was Rees Bradley Hepburn.

Viacom Outdoor sponsored the Client of the Year award. Although the winner is now challenging rivals on a national basis, Morrisons has maintained its strong ties to the North, investing in Northern marketing services agencies such as BDH\\TBWA. This client has proved that the savvy client shopper knows where to get real value for money.

The next three awards are sponsored by Newsquest, the first of which is the Media Buyer of the Year category. Over the last few months Adline has been researching the views of media sales teams to help us identify the most talented buyers. Among heavyweight competition, Nola Astle of Mediaedge:CIA was singled out for her professionalism, courtesy and openness to new ideas.

For the Advertising Agency of the Year gong, all the regional winners were shortlisted before BDH\\TBWA took the award because, while the agency team are used to emerging at the top of the awards tree, it never appears to be in danger of letting complacency take hold. The loss of creative director Danny Brooke-Taylor will be keenly felt, but with strength in depth the Didsbury congregation will surely be well placed to challenge for this accolade yet again next year.

In the last award presented at this year’s event, Adline sought to identify the Media Independent of the Year. The winning agency, now at ten years old, celebrated by pushing its annual billings past the £190m mark (a 50 per cent increase on the previous 12 months). The winner of Media Independent of the Year is MediaVest Manchester.

And that brings us to the end of 2004. Adline would like to say a big thank you to Opus, Newsquest, Viacom and Orchard & Suits for sponsoring the first of what will, hopefully, become a permanent fixture in annual diaries for years to come and another thank you to everyone in the industry for your support throughout the year.

sales team of the year

Sales Team of the Year

Winner: Viacom

National Press Display

Winner: Metro

National Press Classified

Winners: Telegraph and Daily Mail

Regional Press

Winner: Newsquest

Magazines

Winner: Natmags

Outdoor

Winner: Viacom

Television

Winner: Channel 4

Radio

Winner: GMG