Winner
Bridge Studio, News UK
Bridge Studio is News UK’s multi-platform content studio. It upped its investment in 2020 during the pandemic, growing its team and its products, as well as focusing on diversity. It won new business, created more than 400 campaigns across video, digital, social, print, radio and events and increased revenues compared to the previous year.
It harnessed video and motion graphics capabilities and implemented digital tools to develop platforms to increase audience engagement levels. Content highlights include the 50th anniversary Range Rover campaign, which featured social films with Adwoa Aboah, Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Naomie Harris, three social films for the UK Government and ‘Love Stories’ for Kia.
Diversity was also central to Bridge Studio’s output in the last year, with 72% of its content featuring diverse artists, talent, makeup artists, writers, or a combination of all of these. The launch of Studio PI, a new photography and illustration agency, also has a diversity focus, as it champions exceptional artists from underrepresented categories: women, people of colour, people living with disabilities and people from working-class origins. In its first five months, Studio PI delivered more than 80 commissions for brands and clients including Calvin Klein, Amex, Christian Louboutin, The Guardian and Volvo.
Highly Commended
Invention, Reach
Invention is the content studio based within Reach Solutions, creating bespoke branded content campaigns for advertisers and distributing content to audiences across a range of platforms. By the end of 2020, it had increased digital revenue and won new business, with a strategy focused on a digital-first, data-led content team. Standout campaigns included one for Very, offering guidance for parents online for children going back to school. For Co-op Funeralcare, Invention created ‘In Loving Memory’, supporting families and helping them to commemorate loved ones who were lost during lockdown, with journalists turning the standard obituary into detailed, tailored stories about lost loved ones.
Shortlisted
Hearst Studio, Hearst UK
Imagine, Immediate Media Co
4Studio, Channel 4