HOLLYWOOD, December 07, 2010  SHOOT Magazine, the leading publication for commercial and entertainment production, announced today that Wieden + Kennedy has been selected as its 2010 Advertising Agency of the Year. They say:

SHOOT selected its Agency of the year based on which ad shop made the biggest positive impact in '10 in terms of brand building, creative, and successfully weaving its clients into the social fabric of mainstream and pop culture. In an evolving creative marketplace where advertising and entertainment have come together, W+K stood out in 2010, winning a coveted entertainment industry award, the primetime commercial Emmy, for the second straight year–this time for Old Spice's "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like." The spot proved to be a branding phenomenon, paving the way for a social media campaign that made the Old Spice brand hip and contemporary, a far cry from your father and grandfather's Old Spice. More importantly this reshaping of the brand translated into impressive sales gains.

Meanwhile W+K returned to its Nike roots with athlete-led brand work, including "The Human Chain," another Emmy nominee, and the recent LeBron James tour de force "Rise," which tackled the superstar's eroding popularity in some people's minds as he asks us "What should I do?" "Rise" became the #1 most viewed online sports video during the week of a campaign launch, generating some 2.6 million views on Youtube.

Even work that wasn't favorably received across the board garnered pop culture attention–namely "Earl and Tiger," the first spot in which Tiger Woods appeared following his public fall from grace. With narration from Tiger's late father, the video was seen on newscasts and TV shows as well as online around the world, reaching some 200 million people globally in one week.

Breakthrough social media work for ESPN, Winter Olympics fare for Procter & Gamble, redefining campaigns for Target, and an inspiring Levi's Ready To Workwear campaign tied to one town's resurrection after the country's economic downturn were among the highlights of W+K's 2010 portfolio.

Nice one. Huge congrats to all in PDX and beyond!

The illegible scan above (click to enlarge) is from this week's Campaign magazine. It's their annual listing of the UK's top 50 agencies by income. The numbers are mostly for 2009, which is the most recent info that's publicly available. The table shows that W+K London has risen 8 places from number 20 to number 12. Our income grew by 23.4% year on year. Every other agency in the top 20 (other than Saatchi and Saatchi, which grew by 4%) saw a decline in income during that period and many agencies were badly hit by the recession, with a double digit decline. I was surprised to see that this shows us as being larger than agencies like Grey, Euro RSCG, CHI, TBWA and WCRS. I guess that's because UK listings tend to look at size by billings (ratecard UK media spend of accredited clients) whereas this table shows actual reported revenue. Using billings is a relic of the days when agencies made their money from media commission on 'above the line' advertising. These days looking at billings is pretty useless as an indicator of agency performance. 

Given that this data is a year old now, it's a snapshot of a time already long gone the rankings for 2010 will no doubt be different again. But it's sobering to see just how brutal the 2009 recession was for the UK ad industry.