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The agency, whose clients include British Airways, Lynx and KFC, was praised by judges as "clearly at the top of its game".
"After 12 months of producing impressive business growth and work that demonstrably helped its clients’ business blossom, this agency justifiably exudes confidence," they added.
Pushing BBH all the way was Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, which narrowly lost out on the top prize.
PHD made it a hatrick of wins, scooping the top prize in the media category for the third consecutive year running. Highlights this year for the Omnicom outfit included landing the bulk of Unilever’s £3bn global communications planning account.
In a stellar year for OgilvyOne, the agency wrested the title from last year’s winner Lida. The WPP agency can add Marketing’s award to its Cannes Lion in Direct and a Cyber Lion, plus the Grand Prix and nine golds from this year’s DMAs.
For the first time, LBi won the digital agency category, while Synergy took the sponsorship prize after impressing judges with its Olympic work for sponsors such as Coca-Cola and BMW.
Winners in other categories created strong Olympic-themed activity, too. FutureBrand, whose chief executive Nick Sykes led the McCann Worldgroup London 2012 team, is named Branding Agency of the Year, while Sense, which worked on three Olympics Games activations, including Glaceau Vitaminwater, captured the experiential title.
Elsewhere, the three-year-old John Doe beat more established players to take the PR title and Sunday repeated its trick of two years ago, triumphing in the Content Marketing category.
The awards, now in their 12th year, saw more than 80 agencies battle it out across 13 categories. Judged by an independent panel of experts, they are heavily skewed towards effectiveness.
The Winners
AdBBH
Branding
FutureBrand
Contact centre
Firstsource
Content marketing
Sunday
Digital
LBi
Direct
OgilvyOne
Experiential
Sense
Field marketing
REL Field Marketing
Insight
Millward Brown
Media
PHD
PR
John Doe
Promotional marketing
Haygarth
Sponsorship
Synergy