Score: 7
Last year: 6
How the agency rates itself: 7
Wunderman’s 2016 began on a sour note when UK chief executive Chris Perry left after less than a year. But the agency moved quickly to promote managing partners Pip Hulbert and Chris Daplyn to chief operating officer and managing director respectively.
The new team then managed to attract talent from rivals Rapp and Havas Helia in the form of Rob Curran as head of customer experience and Jo Boyden as managing partner.
Wunderman has been known to produce fun work for The Sun’s Dream Team fantasy football league, and that continued in 2016. As part of the new in-house division set up in a joint venture with The & Partnership, Wunderman devised a campaign around last year’s Premier League winner Leicester City with the tagline: "It pays to experiment." It’s testament to the agency’s striking work that it picked up more business from The Sun including Sun Bets, The Sun Bingo and Fabulous Bingo in the same year. Meanwhile, the agency also made a fun campaign for Shell.
Danone, EY and Standard Chartered were among the eight wins in 2016, while Wunderman also spent much of the latter part of the year throwing everything it could at the consolidated EE and BT pitch. The agency said goodbye to eight clients, including EDF Energy (after the utilities giant took the work in-house), Ikea and Virgin Media, which was resigned.
During 2016, Wunderman’s London office also launched a new way of working that has been rolled out globally. The agency says "Collision" is a "unique approach" that means it works collaboratively.
The new team is gaining traction. Wunderman’s 2017 couldn’t have started better after the agency beat Proximity to the combined BT/EE CRM account – the biggest direct marketing review in years. It would seem that Mel Edwards has found her A-team.
How the agency describes its year in a tweet
We built something special in ’16. A JV for News UK, rockstars joined, 14 gongs, 8 game-changing new clients & a Creative Equals partnership
Score key: 9 Outstanding 8 Excellent 7 Good 6 Satisfactory 5 Adequate 4 Below average 3 Poor 2 A year to forget 1 Survival in question