It’s a new year and time once again to dish out The Drum’s New Year Honours, but who were the brands brave enough to do something different in 2013, and which agencies impressed us time and time again?
Over the past week we have been revealing our picks of the year, the full list of which is also published in The Drum’s 8 January issue. Today we take a look at our favourite PR agencies of 2013.
Nelson Bostock
Despite the loss of the Facebook account, which would have hurt any agency, the Creston-owned communications agency is strong on service and client understanding, and has been heavily involved in this year’s EE launch. Its major clients include Warner Brothers, salesforce.com, Canon, Jackpotjoy.com, Toshiba and Sony Playstation.
Edelman
Headed up by CEO Ed Williams, the London office of this international company is an impressive outfit that works across a number of industry clients and which brought in the FT’s chief media correspondent Ben Fenton in April to head up its creative industries offering. Microsoft moved its b2b communications account into the company, while the agency also picked up the Facebook account from Nelson Bostock later in the year.
Blue Rubicon
The agency, which poached Aegis’ global technology performance director at the beginning of the year, looks set for big things and has expanded into Dubai in recent months. Despite accounts with O2 and GiffGaff going up for review in November, the company recently picked up work with the Guardian and has a confidence that will see it thrive in 2014.
Velvet
Celebrating its 10th birthday last year, Jo Sensini’s Velvet is a hard-working but imaginative agency that has begun to work with advertising charity Nabs in order to grow the industry’s engagement and awareness. Velvet also works with agencies such as Maxus, Sun Branding Solutions, Space, Smith & Milton and Results International.
Pumpkin
A good team of hard-working and enthusiastic individuals headed up by Sarah Owen, Pumpkin serves its agency clients, such as M&C Saatchi, Ogilvy, TribalDDB, 23Red, Weapon7, Arena and Havas Media, very well, promptly responding to requests.