‘The agency of tomorrow’: How agency of the year Manifest future-proofed in 2024

This unique model coupled with our focus on setting new standards across all tenets of our business has resulted in Manifest’s most successful year to date.

Setting new standards

To improve stability and operational rigor we established new standards of excellence, resulting in a 70% retention rate and 84% client satisfaction rate.

We exceeded our growth targets by 25%, adding 30 new clients and increasing our headliner client portfolio by 40%. This all resulted in a 155% increase in profit year-on-year, while our global footprint saw a 40% increase in multi-market client partnerships.

A unified proposition

We have developed some of our most successful work for long-term global agency-of-record clients including Diageo, SC Johnson, Mayborn Group, Reckitt, Logitech, Daiya, and Gousto.

Thanks to the breadth of our service offering through our proprietary unified model, we’ve added over 30 new clients this year across sectors.

Manifest has also expanded its ventures arm, which includes six successful social enterprises including Ecologi, a climate-positive subscription platform worth over £75m. This year we added Ethos, a 100% renewable energy investment platform; and Fair Art Fair, a digital platform for artists to reach new audiences.

Brand and expand

We launched our 'central branding' division, dedicated to brand consultancy and unlocking capabilities including ABC brand audits, competitor benchmarking, and cultural impact assessments. This solidified Manifest’s offering as a full service agency offering consultancy, creativity and campaigning, resulting in increased return on investment and impact for clients.

In its first year, this division generated over £750k of revenue, exceeding its annual growth targets in the first six months, with a client base including band The Rolling Stones’ Crossfire Rum, Trilogy Skincare, Treasury Wine Estate, MAM and MSquared. We won 90% of these opportunities without a pitch, with 55% of branding projects leading to further creative projects for the wider Group.

Innovation, innovation, innovation

This year we dialed up our focus on innovation, to drive better results for clients and growth opportunities for our own business. The Loop is the industry’s first omni-channel reporting tool, which takes a holistic view of campaign reporting to ensure we can drive real world business and audience impact. It has been implemented by 100% of clients.

Similarly Roger, our proprietary influencer platform, aims to rid the industry of passive influencer content, and instead develop a ‘fair for all’ buy-in framework for all brand content collaborators, strengthening the authenticity of the brand and reducing the #sponsored nature of the sector.

Becoming AI-native has been a key objective this year, too. Manifest has worked closely with Multiply.co to build operational workflows to expand the capabilities of its existing team and drive operational efficiencies.

Expanding global leadership

We appointed our first chief operating officer (COO), Helen Kenny, to drive the operational rigor alongside our (all-female) managing partners. We also hired a new UK managing director, Rowena Vithlani, and two non-exec directors; Dentsu EMEA COO Ete Davies and Sarah Waddington of Wadds.

We completed our inaugural ‘Future Leaders’ program, with an annual cohort selected for their contributions to the agency. It's designed to give them the hard and soft skills to become industry leaders of tomorrow.

Inclusion in action

Diversity in all forms is integral to delivering world-class ideas, and to driving a more connected and vibrant industry. Our commitment to opening up opportunities for under-represented groups to enter the comms industry is supported by our partnerships with BME Pros, the 10,000 Interns Programme and Channel 4 Content Creatives (UK) and All of Us (Nordics). Our team is currently 30% for under-represented ethnic groups across all levels, with gender and ethnicity pay gaps sitting at -30% and 21% respectively.

This year we’ve increased investment in team development, including tailored career plans, a £1k-per-head training budget, coaching training, and external mentorship. This has led to promotions to C-suite and director-level roles across our insights, central branding, and COO positions.

The workplace of the future

Our global team spans six countries and five time zones, meaning our flexible working policy is more than just a policy - it’s our entire proposition. The benefits of working in collaboration with other studios, often on the other side of the world, is that the 9-5 has become somewhat redundant.

The system works because it’s based on the same principles as our unlimited holiday policy: trust, autonomy and communication. These tenets of behavior and what’s expected mean workflow and work is managed effectively by clear guardrails and expectations on how we show up for each other.

And this year to foster an environment of creative collaboration, and to make sure our creative work flies, we became TWaTs; asking all employees to come into all studios on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, which has resulted in stronger working partnerships.

We've also offer equal parental leave, as well as life change bursaries for times people are unable to work for a large period of time unexpectedly.

2024 has been a transformational year for Manifest. Our commitment to building an omnichannel, multi-market agency proposition has provided a stable yet flexible framework on which to produce myriad much-needed industry innovations across service offerings and advancements in tech, measurement and delivery.

Thanks to investments in our team at every level, our ability to incite positive impact has become stronger than ever before. We’re proof that there is a world in which commercial success and positive impact don’t just sit alongside each other, but fuel each other. Never before have the industry and brands across the world so clearly needed a voice that stands up for good and leads the charge towards the Agency of Tomorrow.

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