NB: If you are looking for a specific type of agency, then I have written some other articles which include:
Top 50 award winning design agencies
Top 50 award winning advertising and marketing agencies
Top 50 award winning packaging and branding agencies
Agency Republic
www.agencyrepublic.com
Well, we start of this list with an agency that has been voted Digital Agency of the year, five times! And that was out of the last seven years, I wonder who pipped them to the post the other two years? Maybe you'll find out somewhere down this list? Well, apart from that major accolade, they have also won a D&AD Yellow Pencil, a Cannes Cyber Lion, an EPICA Gold and 2 APG Awards (the only digital agency to have won awards from the APG). There is some great work on here for the likes of Adidas and Playstation, I particularly love the game they created for O2, The Great Niggle Nobble, really fun!
Whether you are a web designer looking for some eye candy or a marketer looking for their next potential digital agency – you are sure to find one here.
AKQA
www.akqa.com
Took me ages to find this one, always thought they were called Aqua, oops. Well, now they are found, lets list their accolades: Creative Agency of the Year - New Media Age 2010, Digital Agency of the Year - Campaign 2010, Most Respected Agency - NMA Top 100, Agency of the year in 2009 and 2010 - Revolution, Agency of the year in 2008, 2009 and 2010 by IAB... see a theme developing here? Great work to look out for includes Ferrari.com, Heineken, Nike and Xbox 360, oh and I love their digital advert for the Pot Noodle christmas delivery, it is so funny.
Alexander Interactive
www.alexanderinteractive.com
It seems Ai have won a whole heap of awards and will only list the most honourable, so here goes: Masses of Interactive Media Awards (IMA's) including repeat listings in the NMA Top 10 Agencies since 2007, Multiple American Design Awards and Multiple Davey Awards, whoever Davey is? Wasn't he one of the Monkeys :-) Well, Ai make websites that work as hard as you do, improving revenue, conversion rates and focus with ALL visitors to their web sites. Love the digital back-end development for Virgin Mobile and Citi.
Ascentium
www.ascentium.com
Ascentium delivers user experiences and innovative business solutions by fusing consultative insight, inspired creative and technological wizardry to create multichannel connections between brands and customers, helping their clients profit from a digitized and mobilised world. Forrester Research singled out Ascentium for attaining the “highest client satisfaction” of the top interactive agencies. Other claims to fame include being singled out as the People's Champ at the Pixel Awards, multiple IMA's and multiple Communicator Awards. Notable client work includes EA, Cisco and T-Mobile.
BGT
www.bgtpartners.com
Blimey, I thought the packaging industry was a flood with more awards than you can shake a shitty stick at, it seems that the web industry is far worse, these guys list awards that don't mean a thing (best companies to work for? What client needs to know that?), amongst the long list are some design award gems: including multiple American Business Awards (The Stevies), multiple Davey Awards, multiple Web Awards, multiple IACs, multiple IMAs (including a top 10 agency of the year), multiple W3 Awards (see, that's better), and the Top Agency from the Horizon Interactive Awards. So BGT, what's the need to display being ranked No.16 by the South Florida Business Journal? That's like saying they have a Design Intellect Award LOL. Some lovely digital work for Sony, Avaya and FedEx.
BGT Partners are the only interactive agency to be both Microsoft Gold and Adobe Omniture Fusion Certified and a member of Adobe Omniture's Customer Advisory Board.
Big Spaceship
www.bigspaceship.com
The Big Spaceship has a big portfolio and an even bigger list of awards, all of them mentionable this time, including multiple award wins from each of these bodies:
Communication Arts Interactive Annual 2010
Hive Awards
The Art Directors Club Bronze
Pixel Awards
The Webby Award
New York Festivals
One Show Interactive
W3 Awards
Global Media Awards
FITC
Promax | BDA
FWAs
Cannes Cyber Lions
D&AD
Design Week
Clio Awards
London International Awards
A Red Dot
The Big Spaceship create experiences, products, platforms and content that help brands build meaningful relationships with consumers. Their portfolio is superb, they do some great work for Adobe, Coca Cola, Corona, Ford, but mostly online experiences for film companies such as Miramax, NBC, Paramount, Sony Pictures and Warner Brothers. I love the style of their projects for Wrigleys.
Blenderbox
www.blenderbox.com
Blenderbox blend strategy, design and technology to create innovative, successful digital experiences, I guess why they are called Blenderbox, is there more to these guys than chucking a load of ingredients into a blender and seeing what comes out?
Well, there certainly is, they are already picking up awards in the 2011 season to add to their past collection of IMAs, Webbies, OMMA Awards, Summit International Awards, Communicator Awards, W3's, Pixels and WebAwards! Definitely a nod of recognition here! They have done a nice website for the new World Trade Centre and the Hewlett Foundation. Great stuff!
Blitz
www.blitzagency.com
These guys seem to look after multiple companies' digital worlds and produce some fantastic visual results, I can recommend viewing it for some decent web design 'eye candy'. If you short for time, why not have a look at the short video that summarises their work (not the quick tour, the work overview), it looks ace. Of you that don't have time, don't look at the awards section, it's massive and includes:
Communication Arts
London International Awards
Webby Awards
OMNI Awards
The Addy Awards
The International Davey Awards
OMNA Awards
Adobe Agency Partner
WebAwards
Summit International Awards (SIA)
IMA Awards
IAC Awards
W3 Awards
All in all, another web, digital and interactive giant! Look out for some of the ace game related work, automotive, hotels and even work on the Adobe CS 5 Suite.
B–Reel
www.b-reel.com
B-Reel is more of a digital production partner than an agency, I have no idea why, as they do fantastic work in their own right, but then I guess it beats finding clients when other agencies can do that hard work for you. There is some fantastic work on here with an embedded humorous twist, such as the AXE (LYNX) Hair Crisis Relief, Brightdance from Talk Talk, an excellent website for Perrier Mansion, you can even drive a Mitsubishi from your desktop and a Magnum Gold pleasure hunt!
Like I said, their awards are in combination with some big name agencies, but they all have the same unity, so you can see that it is the creative from B-Reel coming through.
They have won multiple awards from multiple institutions and these include:
Tomorrow Awards
The FWA: Site of the month, the year & most influential site of the year
SXSW Interactive Awards: Best of Show
Creative Circle Awards
Epica
Cannes Cyberlion
Webbys
Clio Awards
New York Festivals: Grand Trophy
AICP Next Awards
D&AD Awards - Gold Pencil
London International Advertising Awards - Gold
Eurobest
I wonder who gets to collect and keep the trophies?
Critical Mass
www.criticalmass.com
It funny when an agency wins lots of awards, I've seen this before in my other article, they get to be award 'givers' themselves, this time it's extra funny though, they have an awards system to award their own work, the CMMYs, excellent. I nominate myself for the Design Intellect Award, now I'm an award winner too :-)
On a more serious side, they have won multiple:
ADDY Awards
2 sites honoured at Webby Awards
IMA and IAC Award wins
2 IMA outstanding achievement awards
Masses of W3 Awards
Applied Arts Awards
CIMA Star Awards
and an OMMA Award for Integrated Online Campaign
I love the Rolex website they did (and of course the Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Infiniti websites).
Dare
www.daredigital.com
Truth or Dare, which is it to be? Well the truth is that this is a renowned digital agency, as Marketing Digital Agency of the Year 2010, it attained the IPA Effectiveness Company of the Year 2010 and Campaign's Digital Agency of the Decade, it's on the Creativity and Ad Age Agency A List 2010 and it's film arm won Ad of the Decade (for Hovis) from ITV. The dare? There isn't one, Dare are in a unique position to build brands for a digital world.
Digital Outlook
www.digital-outlook.com
Digital outlook are included as they are a digital agency who specialise in family, kids and teen audiences within the online arena, with significant experience in film, gaming and television sectors. They have won a Cyber Lion at Cannes, are the winner of the Revolution Creative Award, attained a Gold Davey Award, are BIMA Nominated and are the winner Microsoft's Global Creative Excellence Award, not bad hey!
Domani Studios
www.domanistudios.com
Some lovely web work going on here, great stuff for Porsche, Dorritos, Sprite, VW and Sheraton Hotels. Domani Studios have been given 2 London International Gold Awards, a Gold National ANDY Award, the People's Choice Award at the Webby Awards, numerous FWAs, a Grand Prize in Digital from the ANA Awards, multiple IMAs and was selected by the IMA as a Top 10 Agency! Nice show reel too.
Equator
www.eqtr.com
One for the Scots this time, every year the NMA publishes a list of the UK's top 100 interactive agencies - with companies ranked on the income made from digital media activities. Equator make number 19 on the list for the UK as a whole, and number 1 in Scotland for the 5th year running. Some nice work to look at, especially Ultimo :-), HTC, the Eden Collection, De Vere Hotels, Highland Spring and Pretty Polly.
EVB
www.evb.com
Absolutely bizarre that an award winning digital agency is using Word Press to power it's own website? WTF? They must be too busy concentrating on doing decent work for clients instead. Awards include 28 FWAs and counting, a Cannes Cyber Lion, some London International Awards for its work on Adidas.TV and an Ad:Tech Award.
Whether you love the work that EVB does or hate it, there is no debating that their agency delivers ideas that strike a chord. To date, their social media campaigns have engaged over half a billion online consumers!
Fi (Fantasy Interactive)
www.f-i.com
Web companies always amaze me, since the internet is so young, then so are the companies that work in the field. Fi, in web terms is old hat, they have been around for 12 years, how funny. Founded in 1999 in a small Swedish town called Soderfors, it has now grown to be ranked 3rd in Imagine Publishing’s list of most inspiring companies, just behind Apple (1st) and Pixar (2nd). Fi has been awarded .net Magazine's Design Agency of the Year in 2008 and the Best Interactive of the Year by CommArts. Their other web accolades are: 37+ FWA Awards and counting, to include: 2x FWA Sites of the Year, 5x FWA Sites of the Month! Fi was also proud to be the first inductee into The FWA Hall of Fame and gain the People's Choice Award at The Webby Awards.
I love their work for HTC, Range Rover, Fox, AOL, EA and the Nintendo Wii.
Firstborn
www.firstbornmultimedia.com
Their awards list is as long as my arm, well longer in fact, or else my arm would be dragging a long way behind me... the list includes, numerous FWAs, Dope Awards, CommArts Awards, Hive Awards, Webby Awards, Summit Awards, FITC, W3, OMMA, Davey Awards, Adobe, WMA Webawards, Pixel Awards, MITX Interactive Awards, IMAs, Cannes Cyber Lions, Andy Awards, LIA, Clio's and even old Macromedia Awards going way back to the year 2000.
Love their work for M&Ms, Pepsi, IBM, Publicis, Ford, Nokia and more... this agency is the digital daddy after being the first born in the industry.
Forsman & Bodenfors
www.fb.se
If Firstborn is the daddy, then Forsman Bodenfors is the grand daddy of digital agencies, let me show you some numbers:
36+ Cannes Cyber Lions - including 2 Grand Prix and a Titan.
27+ Clio Awards
86+ Epica Awards
45+ Eurobest Awards
70+ Guldägget Awards (Swedish Golden Egg Awards)
13+ London International Awards
57+ New York Festivals Awards
15+ The One Show Awards
They must get really bored going to award ceremonies don't you think, at least they have a sense of humour, their website has a link to the webcam in the trophy room, made me laugh anyway! Notable work includes Ikea, Volvo, unicef, e-on and Findus.
Freestyle Interactive
www.freestyleinteractive.co.uk
Freestyle are number 36 in the RAR top 100 and 75 in the NMA top agencies in 2010, and their main accolade, is that they won 'Best in Digital' at the RAR awards 2009 against 300 other top RAR agencies. And if you think in the ever changing world of digital, that makes them out of date, well they are up and nominated again for 'Best in Digital', 'Best in Creativity/Innovation', 'Best in Professionalism' and 'Best in Strategic Thinking' in this years 2011 awards, so, as Bart Simpson says, eat my shorts! Well theirs, not mine! Love some of the digital work for Virgin Active, The G5 Challenge, Drambuie and Lombard.
Glueisobar (formerly de-construct)
www.glueisobar.com
This award winning digital agency was formerly known as de-construct, before it was purchased by the Aegis Group and re-branded in to the digital arm of it's isobar agency, now it's called glueisobar, should have just left it as de-construct if you ask me :-)
Thought I would clear that up first so we can track the wins in whichever guise!
First of all, Google had appointed Glue (with BBH Labs) to develop the communications strategy and creative for the launch campaign of Google Chrome, this kind of sets the standard don't you think? So, here are some of the best awards they have received:
Eurobest Awards
Webby Awards
London International Awards
Yahoo! Big Idea Chair – Purple Armchair
4 Wave Festival Trophies
Spikes Asia Awards
Click Awards – Grand Prix
Stevie Awards
WebAwards
D&AD Awards
Econsultancy Innovation Awards
Cannes Cyber and Media Lions
Meribel Cyber Cristal
LIAA
Epica
Campaign Big 2010
CLIO's
Etc, etc, etc...
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
www.goodbysilverstein.com
It's time to complete the family trio, GS&P is the mother of all things web and digital, they were the first ever interactive agency of the year at the One Show, a digital agency of the year at the Cannes Lions, gained multiple D&AD Yellow Pencils and named Agency of the Decade by Adweek! Love the work for Nintendo, GE, HP, Specialized and Häagen-Dazs, any chance of a freebie ice cream?
Hi Res
www.hi-res.net
Within the web industry there is always a good story of people setting up global organisations from tinkering with technology in their bedrooms (don't laugh), Hi-Res became famous from a self initiated project in flash - www.soulbath.com - which gained attention from the world and led to that all important, first commercial project, which in their case was a website for the film 'Requiem for a Dream'.
Since then they have achieved awards from the D&AD, Cannes Cyberlions, Clios, One Show, BAFTA and Webby Awards.
Now part of the larger Syzygy Group, they still plan to remain small and do great work. Look out for some really nice work for Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel and the Economist.
Holler
www.holler.co.uk
Holler have recently upgraded their website design and failed to transfer most of their juicy older content over, keep an eye on their site as it's bound to fill up with some ace content. Holler have won some IPA Golds for their strategy, they are 2 times Reputation Online Gold Winners and have even been nominated for a BAFTA. They create incredible experiences that inspire a following. Follow them.
iCrossing
www.icrossing.co.uk
iCrossing is a specialist entry for you, they are a digital marketing agency specialising in search marketing, so whilst your here looking for an award winning digital agency, you may as well pick up a contact for an award winning seo company. They have won numerous accolades, including the number one ranked agency for both paid search (PPC) and natural search (SEO) in the last Forrester Search Wave Report. They also have two Forrester-approved social media case studies and were shortlisted for the Revolution Agency of the Year Award. Of their 82 clients that completed their last customer satisfaction survey, ALL said they would recommend them.
They build integrated search, social and creative digital programmes for some of the world’s leading brands, including Coca-Cola, BT, Toyota, Chelsea, M&S and Barclays.
Kinetic
www.kinetic.com.sg
One from Singapore for a change, just love this website to bits even though it is now 6 years old! Their list of award wins is a text based pdf – 17 pages long!
Check them out now! (Oh and as far as I'm aware, they are part of the Ad Planet Group [ www.adplanet.com.sg ] and not the global chain Kinetic WW as they are branding people :-)
Koko Kaka
www.kokokaka.com
Koko Kaka was once quite heavily sitting in the pocket of Forsman & Bodenfors as it's digital partner, as a consequence, they had won many awards in conjunction with them, but now a major player in their own right, they have continued to win on behalf of their own clients, namely Wrangler, Burberry and Ikea. Wins include multiple Guldägg Awards, Dope Awards, FWAs, Eurobests, LIA, EPICAs, Cannes Cyber Lions, Clio Awards, One Show and Webby Awards. Oh and if you are wondering why my screen grab is the wrong colour, the whole sites colour scheme changes frequently.
LBi
www.lbi.com
LBi aka Lost Boys International are huge, with access to over 1800 digital professionals around the planet (with 500 in London alone), you can be sure they are the mutt's nuts in the award arena. They were the most awarded marketing and technology agency in 2009. Wins Include BIMAs, Webby Awards, awards from the One Show, D&ADs, Eurobest, Cannes Cyber Lions, ADDY Awards and London International Awards. Love the work they have done for Virgin Atlantic, BT, Audi, M&S, Volvo and Renault.
Light Maker
www.lightmaker.com
Lightmaker was founded in 1997 and became successful through pioneering the use of now Adobe Flash technology, cornering the then, 'niche market', they established themselves as a global leader in the development of Flash based solutions.
Lightmaker continues to showcase Flash websites but has diversified its service offering to deliver Standards Compliant technology, Microsoft Surface and Microsoft.NET 4 systems. Their portfolio is great and it's no surprise to see they have wins like:
2x IMA Outstanding Achievement Awards
3x Best in Class Award from the IMAs
2 Pixel Awards
CSS Website Of The Year Award 2010
Plenty of Adobe Sites of the Day
An NMA Effectiveness Award
Plenty of FWA Sites of the Day
A People's Voice Webby Award
Liquid Light Digital
www.liquidlight.co.uk
Liquid have been around since the dawn of digital, from the mad days of '95 when everyone wanted new media and through the dark days of '99 when the internet 'dot com' bubble burst. They have learnt from this experience, their aim is perfection - pushing concepts and pursuing detail so that the balance between commercial need, usability, look, feel and accessibility come together in one seamless experience.
This has gained them plenty of awards:
Multiple Gold Communicator Awards
Masses of IMAs – distinctions and outstanding achievement awards
Horizon Interactive Awards
Multiple W3 Awards
Also, the Interactive Media Awards (IMA) recognised Liquid Light as one of their top 10 agencies – the only UK agency to make the list. Look out for some nice work in their portfolio for Swiss Life, Parasol, Mikey and Land Securities.
North Kingdom
www.northkingdom.com
Another one from Sweden here, do you think with all those dark winter nights they have grown up tinkering with computers or something? Again, their awards list is pretty big:
Cannes Cyber Lions – 5 Gold, 3 Silver and 3 Bronze
New York Festivals – 2 Grand Award, 3 Gold, 3 Silver and 1 Bronze
D&AD – 1 Black Pencil and 1 Yellow Pencil
One Show Interactive Awards – 4 Gold, 4 Silver and 2 Bronze
Clio Awards – 2 Gold, 2 Silver and 4 Bronze
FWA – 2 Sites of the Year, 2 People´s Choice of the Year, 7 Sites of the Month, 28 Sites of the Day and in the FWA Hall of Fame
London International Awards – 5 Gold
Art Directors Club – 2 Gold and 1 Silver
The work they have done for Adidas, Toyota, Coca Cola, Vodafone and GE is great!
Pancentric
www.pancentric.com
Pancentric is an award winning digital agency that I think is one to watch, ok so it's not got the biggest award wins so far, but that is set to change, they have taken on a senior interactive creative from the BBC which has transformed their structure. They are 8th in the UK for market share of digital design, pushing them up the UK charts a massive 27 places in one year, now ranked the 42nd agency in the UK, and that is with just a solo service, digital.
They are passionately committed to driving new levels of stand out creative for their clients and have welcomed a bunch of new designers to their award-winning creative team, now gaining new clients such as Channel 4, Endemol, Clipper Teas, the Royal Academy of Music and Kew Gardens. Expect to see some good things very soon...
Perfect Fools
www.perfectfools.com
What an ace name these guys have, another digital agency that collaborates with the other agencies that have the clients that they can perform their digital magic with. No chasing after business, they are no fools :-) Perfect Fools have helped the likes of Forsman & Bodenfors, BBH, DDB, Droga5 and farfar (yes, they are another Swedish agency). They are unashamedly... technology geeks, are obsessed with the power and potential of digital technologies, and the ability to create joyful, highly-engaging relationships between brands and consumers. Considering the web is only 6000 days old, I wonder what we should expect to see from them in the next 3000?
Their wins include:
5+ Epica's
A Media Grand Prix & a Gold Cyber Lion at the Cannes Lions
YoungGuns Silver
One Show Silver Pencil
Gold at the Golden Awards
Webby Honouree times three!
Silver at London International Awards
A Cresta Grand Prix
Gold and Silver at New York Festivals Awards (and 7 other honours)
The Golden Award of Montreux International Festival
Andy Awards digital gold at the New York Awards
Eurobest Gold, Silver and Bronze
Multiple FWAs and to round off, some Clio Awards from the US of A.
Pod 1
www.pod1.com
Another one to watch here, I've included them as they are on the rise, prior to 2007 they seemed to have a lot of near wins, they have gained 3 silver awards from the International Academy of the Visual Arts (W3) but made it to the finals in a lot more, only to get piped at the post, but then who ever gets slated for getting a silver at the Olympics?
How about now? Well, since improving their e-commerce side of the business, we are now talking a BIMA Award in 2010, DOPE Awards, numerous e-commerce awards, a Webby Awards winner, AOP Shortlist, a DBA Effectiveness Award for Pepsi Max, it's now in the Top 100 Design Groups and in the Top 100 on NMAs list, also has FWA wins and a D&AD Black Pencil.
Not bad for an agency that has only been going since 2001. Pod1 is named the UK's fastest growing agency for the past several years, now they work on some of the world's best brands. I love the Harvey Nichols, LK Bennet, Denon, Conran, Kenneth Cole, Jigsaw and Mulberry online work they have done (and for obvious reasons, the Myla one :-).
Razorfish
www.razorfish.com
This is the grand mother of all digital agencies, with over 2000 employees over the world, you'd need to bring in a small countries GDP just to cover their salaries :-) So, Razorfish must be good then, hell yes, they cut the web better than the Japanese razor through sushi :-) Lovely work throughout the portfolio here and plenty of articles to download too which are a decent insight to the digital arena.
Their awards list is massive, I'm already aware that this page is getting very long, so I'll try and keep it short (as much as I can):
23 Web Awards
2 Mobi's
9 OMMAs
FWAs aplenty
1 Vibrant Award
28 Webby Awards
24 IACs
1 Davey
2 Communication Arts
42 W3s
17 IMAs
Leader in Web Design according to the Forrester Wave
7 Horizon Interactive Awards
2 One Show Awards
3 Addy Awards
1 Clio
Best of the Web
6 Addy Awards
3 Create Awards
17 WebAwards
NMA Effectiveness Grand Prix Award
Adnews Interactive Agency of the Year '08
2 Mobius Awards
2 American Design Awards
2 AGDAs
DTC Interactive Agency of the Year
There is more but I'm bored of typing, and am sure you are getting bored of reading, so one last word, this is only since 2007, you get my drift...
Reading Room
www.readingroom.com
Does it feel like a trip to the library reading this article, well things are about to get interesting if your interested in or are looking for one of the best full service digital and web design agencies in the UK, this is one (as far as my list goes anyway), and if your not convinced, then their awards list reads like a book:
Sitecore Site of the Year awards
Charity Awards
Loads of Stevies at the International Business Awards
Top digital consultancy in the Sunday Times
Gold at the European Seal of e-Excellence Awards
Voted top digital agency in The Drum’s New Year’s Honours list
'Best in Class' Award Interactive Media Awards (IMAs)
Multiple International Interactive Media Awards
2009 Revolution Innovation Awards
CIPR Excellence award
New Statesman Media Awards
Shortlisted for the prestigious Visionary Design Award
Best Use of Technology Award at SDL Tridion World
It was named the top UK digital agency by an independent agency reputation survey conducted by YouGov, coming second overall with product designers Seymour Powell taking the top spot. G4S, Taste the Glenlivet and Skoda UK are one of their nicer sites to look out for in their portfolio.
Red Bee Media
www.redbeemedia.com
Red Bee Media has a huge list of accolades but in TV Media this time. I think you deserve a rest from reading, so I won't list them, instead just type the word 'Award' into their news section on their website and you'll see they have at least 38 articles on their design wins, mostly multiple victories, you do the maths! I would want these guys on my side when playing in the media game!
Delve into their portfolio of work and you will see they do a lot of specialist digital media work for television and the tech heavy back-end content handling and streaming. Look out for the fantastic re-brand of the 'Dave' channel, in case study format.
Red Interactive
www.ff0000.com
Well done if you are still reading, your almost three quarters of the way through this article and now you've reached Red Interactive, I like the URL they've used but think it might go over some clients heads, although it would make them look clever once they had explained it :-) So clever in fact that they have won quite a few awards, to include multiple FWAs, multiple W3 Awards and Best in Show at the W3, 3 Webby Awards, multiple Horizon Interactive Awards, Best Agency and Best in Show at the Pixel Awards, 3 WebAwards and are multiple FITC winners.
Their web site is a fantastic example of their digital work, look out for some nice web sites for clients such as Polariod, Honda, Ford, Disney and Sony Pictures.
R/GA
www.rga.com
I'm running out of puns here, I've already done the 'digital daddy' for Firstborn, the 'digital grand daddy' for Forsman & Bodenfors and the 'digital grand mother' of all agencies for Razorfish, crap, what's left? R/GA are again, one of the worlds best. So I suppose we can say that they are the 'great grand father' of all digital agencies. Sorry, dodgy pun I know, but writing an article about 50 of the best digital agencies is pretty tricky :-) Besides their multi winning Nike projects, look out for some great work with Pepsi, Subaru, HBO, Nokia and Avaya.
Now here is their mini list within the big list, awards ahoy!
Named Digital Agency of the decade by AdWeek
OMMA Agency of the Year Award for Digital in '06
Interactive Agency of the year from the Art Directors Club '09
Plenty of Art Directors Club Awards
A multitude of 365 Awards from AIGA
Multiple Ad:tech Awards
A lot of BADAs
Tonnes of Cannes Cyber Lions including the honoured Titanium Lion
Masses of Clios including Best in Show
A D&AD Black Pencil
Loads of HIVE Awards
An Amazing amount of Horizon Interactive Awards
Lots of ANDY Awards
More London International Awards than a single agency should have :-)
A melting pot of New York Festival Wins
A special Award for Innovation from the NMA
A mass of One Show Interactive Awards
Another massive list of The Webby Awards including Agency of the Year
Again a huge list of Web Awards
Se what I mean? WOW!
Saint
www.saintlondon.co.uk
Saint is the digital arm of the award winning agency RKCR Y&R [ www.rkcryr.com ], and they are only 4 years old, a relative newbie in this list, but only after 4 years in business they were voted agency of the Year in 2011 at the Revolution Awards, not bad hey! Other awards include being a Webby Awards Honouree, Merits at the One Show Awards, Cannes Cyber Lions, D&AD 'in book', NMAs and BIMAs. Check out the nice work they have done for clients such as the V&A, the BBC, Virgin and Alfa Romeo.
SapientNitro
www.sapient.com/en-us/sapientnitro.html
See, I told you I'm running out of puns, so lets just call Sapient Nitro the 'great grand mother' of digital agencies :-) they have 9000 staff (or grand children :-) worldwide, absolutely huge! I think they probably own the internet at that size! Well, do you want me to do a list the awards they have? At a quick glance we are looking in the region of 150+ from all the usual award bodies. I would think that you have had enough by now, but in the interest of equal competition, I should go through the work on their website and list their awards in detail, but for now I'm knackered and am done for the day, so will attack it tomorrow when I have a fresh mind.
The day after, now to look at some of their awards:
8 ADDY Awards
1 SXSW Award
2 Revolution Awards
4 IMA Awards
10 Web Awards
12 W3 Awards
10 Cannes Lions
1 Mobius Award
1 IAB International Award
5 HIVE Awards
3 Campaign Big Awards
1 MITX Award
1 Eurobest Award
6 London International Awards
2 OMMA Awards
3 EPICA Awards
2 D&AD Black Pencils
1 ANDY Award
5 One Show Awards
1 IAC Award
1 Webby Award
1 Communication Art Award
2 Clio Awards
3 DMAs
4 EFFIEs
6 IABs
4 New York Festivals
Glad I had a sleep before going through that lot :-) Look out for the job they did for Queensland Tourism Board for 'The Best Job in the World' it is a really ace and effective campaign. Some good stuff for Volvo, Mars, Coca Cola, Foot Locker and some extra great stuff that they have done for personal promotional projects.
Skive
www.skive.co.uk
Skive, why thank you, I think I will, I deserve a break :-)
Soleil Noir
www.soleilnoir.net
How cool a company is this with a name like 'black sun', that's enough is to warrant a look at their work. As the most awarded digital studio in France, these guys are great, I love their style of work, it just sings of the screen... Just sit there, watch the 'what's hot' section and take your pick of which award winning work you want to view and enjoy. With more FWAs than any agency could ever need, these guys are good!
Syzgy
www.syzygy.co.uk
A recently re-branded group (their old ident was awful), they have a new website and they haven't ported over all their old content, so unfortunately it doesn't give a huge amount away in terms of their award wins, but trust me, they wouldn't be on this list if they didn't cut the mustard, so to speak. Especially as I can't even pronounce their name!
Take a quick look into their portfolio and you will see that they were instrumental in producing the award winning website for Private Banking at HSBC. Another of their websites for Mercedes-Benz: Chronicles of Narnia which won 19 awards in total. It was nominated at the ADC and at the New York Festivals Innovative Advertising Awards for Best Consumer Targeted Website, Best Design, Best Use of Music/Sound and Online Advertising.
That was just 2 of their digital projects, they have been going for 15 years, so you get the idea... I love the Mazda stuff they have done recently too.
TBG
www.tbgdigital.com
TBG is a bit of a different entry in this list, why is it here? Well, because they are different. TBG Digital is a global marketing and technology company specialising in Facebook advertising and social media. To qualify to be in this list they still have to have won an award, which they have, a BIMA or two, and are ranked 11 in the New Media Age’s Top 100 Agencies.
TBG Digital exploit online advertising with strategic creative and innovative tactics to execute 'Search and Display' for major global brands, including JetBlue, Dell, EA and Vodafone for the past nine years. TBG are the most experienced Facebook marketing company in the world.
Tribal DDB
www.tribalddb.com
As you can see we are heading to the bottom of our alphabetical list here, but by no means are we entering the bottom of the pile, Tribal DBB are one of the worlds best digital agencies, or as they put it, 'the greatest digitally-centric agency in the world'.
They maybe close, but judging by some of the other contenders in this list, they might still have a little work to do, but they certainly have the capability :-)
Let's take a look at their awards shelf shall we:
5 Cannes Lions
10 Effie Awards
2 Clio Awards including gold
Multiple FWAs
IAB Creative Showcase – best creative Work '09
W3 Awards Golds and 2x Best in Show
Media - Digital Agency of the Year
LIA Awards
2 Gold Web Awards
The Webby Awards People's Voice Winner
IAB Creative Showcase Winner
One Show Gold
D&AD Yellow Pencil Award
2 gold Web Awards
OK, so they are good, and to see some of their good work, take a look at Pepsi, McDonald's, Philips and VW, I really love the Monopoly City Streets they did for Hasbro!
Unit 9
www.unit9.com
As another digital partner to the big agencies, Unit 9 is an award winning powerhouse, they are declared by Campaign Magazine as 'online’s finest', they are one of Creativity’s top interactive production companies, Board magazine also said they are the "Best interactivists". Not just me that rates them then.
As a digital production partner, they have worked for the likes of Tribal (above), Mother, Fallon, AMV BDO etc... so I guess these awards below must be shared with the respective agencies (for details, look at the awards section on their website). Here we go:
2 Silver, Gold and Green Pencils at One Show Awards
Multiple FWAs and mobile FWAs
Silver at Epica Awards
Campaign BIG Awards
3 Gold W3 Awards
2 Webby Awards
One Show Bronze Award
Tokyo Interactive Grand Prix Winner
4 London International Awards
2 Campaign Big Awards
A New York Festivals Gold
4 Cannes Cyber Lions
European Design Awards
Revolution Awards 2008 – 3 Silver + The Revolution Award (The Grand Prix)
MIXX Gold
IVCA Gold and Silver(s)
2 BIMAs
2 FITC Interactive Design & Technology Awards
A D&AD Silver Pencil
An American Business Award (Stevie Awards)
Last but not least, a Design Week Interactive Media Award :-)
VML
www.vml.com
As the antepenultimate listing here, these guys are pretty ultimate. Self proclaimed as 'possibility engineers'. If a solution to an idea doesn't currently exist, they can create it! I like the sound of that ethos, and with two Webby Awards, 33 Web Marketing Association WebAwards, 5 Cannes Cyber Lions, 28 IAC Awards, 69 ADDY Awards, a New York Festival Award and 63 awards from the International Academy of Visual Arts (W3 Awards) including Best in Show, then they certainly do what it says on their tin!
Zone
www.zonecontent.com
Zone are a digital content agency. They help brands connect with their customers by creating content that is listened to, remembered and shared. Zone do it for some of the world's great companies like BT, Coca Cola, Channel 4, Lastminute.com, PWC, The Economist, Unilever, Tesco and Penguin.
Their awards have taken them far in the digital arena with an APA award for Best Digital Solution of the Year, a Revolution Award for Best Retail Online Presence, some NMA Effectiveness Awards and an obligatory FWA - Site Of The Year.
2Advanced Studios
www.2advanced.com (Warning, their website is very slow)
Hey, I know this is the last on the list, so please don't get me wrong, I'm not being lazy by not going into their award wins, all I need to say is that these guys are the 'GOD FATHER' of the digital realm. If you don't know about them, then you don't deserve to know about them :-).
If you find any broken links or out of date images, please let me know here.
