How Agency of the Year Born Social made 2024 ‘the year of the social-first rebrand’
Winning Gold at The Drum Awards for Agency Business in the Agency of the Year (49-250 people) category is Born Social. Here's how, in its own words, it secured the win.
Winner of The Drum Awards for Agency Business in the Agency of the Year (49-250) is Born Social / Credit: Born Social
In a blockbuster year, we grew our existing client investment, increasing average annual spend year-on-year (and 3x in the last two years), while also improving client retention: increasing our average client relationship to four years.
We also launched new products, diversified revenue streams, developed retainers (becoming the social agency of record for our five biggest clients), and scaled our global capabilities, delivering work in 30 languages. All this while growing sustainably, continuing to uphold our B Corp status.
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Social-first creative and creative innovation
We defined Nando’s voice in UK culture with a reactive creative strategy designed to engineer virality that resonated with gen Z. With Maltesers, we built brand love, performing 50+% above our click-through rate benchmark. We mobilized the Ciroc collective by working with iconic talent and performing well above our reach estimate. And we sparked Primark’s buzz on social with a viral CGI Christmas campaign.
We also invested in social-first product development to diversify revenue streams and provide our clients with comprehensive solutions.
Meanwhile, we helped the industry understand and adopt a social-first mindset, led by our senior team delivering keynotes and chairing events. And we’ve shared our thought leadership through events and materials for all. For example, with our predicted trends report, we led the industry to diagnosing 2024 as 'The Year of the Social-First Brand'.
Elsewhere, free industry events, our in-person Born Breakfasts, helped marketers to meet and share learnings. Thousands of marketers have signed up to learn about everything from creator strategy to the value reactivity brings to brand building.
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Leading the way for great talent
The industry needs to change, away from burn-out, exclusive cultures and low sustainability.
We welcomed 70 amazing new starters and promoted 25% of our team this year, while focusing on retention and development, leading to 2.1 years of average tenure.
And we launched Born Ready, our fully-paid trainee scheme to recruit and train diverse, talented 18-24 year-olds otherwise excluded from the industry. We've already hired our first trainees, Sunny and Semira, into the business and recently welcomed our latest trainees, Tyrese, and Tanya.
We’re also making key moves to lead with a healthy hybrid culture by fostering in-person collaboration, enhancing flexible working hours, and fostering in-person collaboration. A travel bursary scheme allows any team member earning under £35,000 to expense up to £100 per month of commuting costs. Except for some flexible work agreements, everyone is invited to be in the office three days per week. Crucially, we haven’t mandated anything - we’ve created the conditions for people to lean in. Enhanced, family-friendly, flexible working hours, a Work From Anywhere policy, and extra buyable holiday all help to build a healthy hybrid culture.
Other policies in this area include offering team members one day per year to make a difference; enabling people to borrow up to £500 on a repayment plan; investing in sustainable production; premature birth and neonatal care and pregnancy loss and carer's leave.
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