It has been a hard year to do badly in customer publishing. Of the best-performing agencies, four have won at least 11 pieces of new business and all have delivered sparkling top-line growth.
These individual performances accord with burgeoning growth in the customer publishing sector, which is forecast to be worth £1bn within five years. Big-name clients, both new and existing, have been allocating considerable marketing spend to the medium, as it proves it can beat all-comers in terms of willing customer engagement.
It wasn't an easy win for Redwood. As an agency already at the top of its industry by gross income, delivering growth of any kind can be difficult. Yet by every significant measure, Redwood has outperformed the best of the rest. In the past 12 months it has won 12 new projects, estimated to be worth £19m in 2007. Add to that the £3m in incremental revenue from existing UK clients, representing a 23% average turnover increase from each, and Redwood already opens up a lead over its nearest competitor for this accolade in 2006.
It is worth pointing out that this new business figure includes international projects. A Redwood-branded international presence is important to the agency, which this year opened a Tokyo office to complement its Toronto, Chicago and New York operations. For clients that require global brand consistency, such networks can seal the deal, though they are rare among UK customer publishers; of the top 10 only Redwood and Haymarket Network have any significant international presence.
It is a tidy segue to Mazda, which appointed Redwood to launch a global magazine in 2007 in one of the biggest sector pitches of this year. Zoom, Zoom, as it is likely to be titled, will be circulated to 3m customers in 10 languages, as the car manufacturer puts a greater emphasis on brand loyalty.
Another significant win was Age Concern's Heyday. The 250,000-circulation bi-monthly is the central pillar of the charity's over-50s membership programme.
What these, and other wins Marketing is unable to reveal, prove is that Redwood continues to win the confidence of brands across a multitude of sectors, including those new to the medium. With clients including Marks & Spencer, Boots, Land Rover, Volvo, Co-operative Financial Services, the NSPCC and Royal Mail, Redwood's remains one of the more enviable client portfolios around.
At this year's Association of Publishing Agencies (APA) Customer Publishing Awards, it picked up awards for magazines it produces on behalf of four of these clients, with Onelife for Land Rover scooping the Grand Prix. Redwood walked away with the biggest trophy haul from an awards scheme that focuses on effectiveness above all else.
Onelife's effectiveness scores are among the highest in the motoring sector, underlining the importance of the title in one of the longest customer journeys to consideration and purchase. According to Land Rover research, 63% of readers have taken action as a result of reading Onelife, 27% have booked a test-drive and 46% considered buying a Land Rover or upgrading.
For the NSPCC's Your Family, the effectiveness objectives are quite different. The bi-monthly is distributed to 392,475 parents via Early Learning Centre stores, making it the UK's biggest parenting title. Of the recipients, 50% were more aware of positive parenting after reading the title and 36% had an improved opinion of the NSPCC.
It would be remiss not to mention the non-magazine work Redwood has picked up this year, in line with a sector that is extending the scope of its client offering, principally into digital communications. The agency created two 20-minute films for Land Rover's branded-content channel, Go Beyond TV, as well as sites and microsites for Kraft and Royal Mail. It also runs all aspects of the Boots Health Club, including publications, web content and in-store POS.
Redwood has added 32 staff in 2006, taking its international headcount close to 350. They may not be greeted individually with a hug by chief executive Keith Grainger each day, but metaphorically they must feel embraced. Proof that Redwood is an agency, rather than a traditional publisher, lies in employee benefits that include a company yoga teacher and reflexologist, birthdays off and a Christmas shopping half-day. Some may say such perks are frivolous, but as competition for top talent intensifies, the hard-nosed employers are most likely to be found in firms seeing their staff cross over.
PREVIOUS WINNERS
2005 Publicis Blueprint
2004 John Brown Citrus Publishing
2003 Publicis Blueprint
2002 John Brown Citrus Publishing
BEST OF THE REST
Our survey to find the most-admired agency among the industry put Square One on top, with double the number of votes of any competitor. It is easy to see why - its high-visibility successes in 2006 have included 11 new business wins, worth £3.5m.
Among these was one of the most interesting projects of the year - a monthly print magazine for online fashion retailer ASOS.com. Just months in, the title is delivering 10% of total monthly sales, with average basket value among readers up 80%.
Other highlights were the launch of LighterLife, a newsstand title, produced on behalf of the weight- management business of the same name, and the relaunch of the Metropolitan Police's internal staff magazine, The Job.
In terms of innovation, Square One is developing broadband TV channels for both clients. With two further wins in the offing, and commercial director Sean King taking over as chairman of the APA in 2007, Square One is expected to stay in the ascendancy.
A strong year for Haymarket Network was crowned when it was appointed to produce the 5.1m-circulation Sky Sports monthly magazine, one of three customer titles BSkyB will distribute in 2007.
The agency has won 16 pieces of new business in the UK this year, worth £6.8m, including Design Council Magazine. And, while other customer publishers scramble for digital capabilities, Haymarket's work in this sector already accounts for 10% of its turnover.
The company's reputation for effectiveness was reinforced by the second-highest haul at the APA awards with four wins for Army, Triangle (Youth Hostel Association) and United Magazine/ManUtd.com.
Despite these successes, there is a sense that it has yet to meet its full potential. This year saw the integration of Haymarket's customer-publishing operations to form Network, but the real restructure has yet to come. Mid-year saw the arrival of managing director Juliet Slot, who has initiated a restructure along market-expertise lines - sport and leisure, B2B, public sector - and set up a crucial planning function.
The second of BSkyB's big magazine launches, Sky Movies, went to FuturePlus, the rapidly growing subsidiary of Future. In two years it has grown from a turnover of £400,000 to £3.8m, with new busi-ness, including Sky, giving it a projected turnover of £6m in 2007.
While other agencies downplay their sector specialisms, FuturePlus shouts about its expertise in leisure, computing and gaming, which has brought it accounts from PC World, BT Vision and HMV Games, among others. It is a depth versus breadth strategy that serves the agency well in terms of channel delivery: FuturePlus positions itself as 'The Content Agency' and has produced customer communications in the form of direct mail, catalogues, email, websites, DVD/CD-ROMs and mobile.
One agency to watch is Sunday, which launched in July 2005 with two clients, Toyota and British Gas. By the end of 2006 it had added seven more. It is an exceptional growth rate that has fuelled a rise in turnover from £438,000 to £1.75m.
Its youthful vigour belies the level of experience of its three founders, who broke away from what is now Story Worldwide. It is a combination of freshness and expertise that has attracted clients including Conran, Miller Homes and Microsoft.
Wardour's focus - on B2B, financial services and membership titles - has served it well in 2006. Its reputation for high-quality annual reports and reviews has seen it pick up projects from Ahold, Serco and Bupa.
It also launched a website for ITV to reach advertisers and agencies, an investors' magazine, Aviso, for JP Morgan and Life for Standard Life Healthcare's customers. The latter was relaunched in January and the APA's Advantage study, which proves effectiveness, found that 89% of readers had acted on its health information. Moreover, the agency achieved all this in a year that saw a management buyout and new publishing, creative and editorial directors.
Last but not least comes John Brown, which rebranded from John Brown Citrus Publishing and added £8.5m of new business from 11 clients.
The agency's biggest statement of intent was the acquisition of leading catalogue publisher Code London, growing total billings to £52.5m. It has launched 500,000-plus circulation title Source for John Lewis' direct services arm Greenbee, and broke out of the usual awards mould by picking up a D&AD pencil for paper company M-real's Galerie Papers and a clutch of design awards for BDO Stoy Hayward's 33 Thoughts magazine.
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