Nielsen billings 2017: n/s
Declared income: n/s
Total accounts at year end: 5
Accounts won: 5 (biggest: Sky Betting and Gaming)
Accounts lost: 0
Number of staff: 12 (+300%)
Key personnel: Matt Gooden, founder and executive creative director; Sean Thompson, founder and executive creative director; Ben Walker, founder and executive creative director; Charles Faircloth, client partner; Marissa Jennings, head of operations and production
Star player: Katie Savelli, account director
When Who Wot Why announced its arrival in 2016, ±±¾©Èü³µpk10 asked whether marketers would find an agency led by creatives sufficiently appealing. After all, all-creative agency line-ups were hardly new, and some cautioned that most clients were happy to pay a premium for strategy but not necessarily for the creative work that backs it up.
The big question was whether there were enough small entrepreneurial clients willing to buy what the agency was selling and whether it could capitalise on an increasing emphasis by marketers on shorter-term, project-based work.
In its first full year of operation, Who Wot Why has made a positive start. Sky Bet, its founding client, has provided a solid base from which to build, while mobile network giffgaff, which works with agencies on a project basis, is the kind of client that might be a comfortable fit. Indeed, giffgaff’s "The big swim" commercial won The Thinkboxes Academy award for TV ad creativity for March/April 2017.
Meanwhile, as the agency broke into ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s top 10 new-business rankings for the first time, its offering began to deepen and broaden. Saatchi & Saatchi’s Matt Butterfield and Ben Mills became Who Wot Why’s first permanent creative appointments in October. At the same time, Matt Gooden and Ben Walker poached Charles Faircloth from their former agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, to manage client relationships.
His arrival could be significant. Clients may like the idea of less-hierarchical agencies, where they can work directly with creatives. But they want those agencies to show they are adept at project management.
SCORE THIS YEAR |
SCORE LAST YEAR |
SELF RATING |
| 7 | n/a | 7 |
Agency's year in a tweet
Who: WWW. Wot: 2017. Why: We love da work. #breakonerule
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
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*indicates where agencies claim the corporate governance constraints of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation
