VCCP has today been unveiled as the UK’s biggest creative agency.

According to exclusive Nielson billings figures revealed in this year’s Campaign Magazine School Reports, VCCP has now risen to the top spot after jumping three places in the top 100 creative agencies table.

In 2022, VCCP won 37 new accounts including Old El Paso, Dog’s Trust and Thames Water which subsequently saw its billings rise by 34% and top AAR’s new business rankings for the fourth year in a row.

Highlights for the challenger agency for challenger brands include winning the IPA Effectiveness Grand Prix Award for Cadbury, having their Cadbury ‘Secret Santa Postal Service’ campaign named the most effective Christmas campaign by Kantar and their DE&I Collective winning Campaign’s Talent Management Team of the Year among other moments.

VCCP has also launched numerous programs through the VCCP Stoke Academy. These include the Student Challenge work experience scheme, the Best Summer Job internship programme and an apprenticeship scheme which has since hired four Apprentices in their Stoke-on-Trent office.

Earlier in the year, VCCP promoted Darren Bailes to Global Chief Creative Officer and Creative Directors Jonny Parker and Chris Birch became joint ECDs of the London agency. Chief Strategy Officer Michael Lee shifted to the same role for VCCP Group, and his deputy Clare Hutchinson succeeded him in London.

Click here to see the full rankings

VCCP’s DEI Collective have won Campaign magazine’s Talent Management Team of the Year for the second year running.

Judges said that VCCP offered “initiatives that contribute to the industry, not just the company: strategically well thought through, creative and magnetic”.

The DEI Collective was set up by Sonia Gilchrist in 2020 when she was appointed into the role of Head of DE&I for the VCCP Group. The purpose of the Collective is to ensure a joined up approach to DE&I across VCCP’s global network, with the key objective of encouraging a culture of inclusivity at its heart.

In 2022, the team set out to change the narrative surrounding conversations on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. The fact that it can often become a tick box exercise or something that is avoided for fear of people getting it wrong needed to be addressed and that’s when Different, Exciting & Interesting was born. With this new approach, the VCCP DEI Collective has proved that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is exciting. It’s about embracing the world around us and the differences which make life interesting, encouraging people to also think about the various exciting possibilities that can come with acknowledging and celebrating these differences.

To help reframe the conversation internally and launch their new approach, the DEI Collective worked with talent right across the Group to create a spoken word film. Written and performed by Samira Seini, the film sets out the BRG’s mission statement and heroes people from every department right across the global network.

In the last three years, the DEI Collective have been responsible for delivering multiple events, bespoke training, new recruitment principles and changes to production processes.

Some of the initiatives that the DEI Collective has led within the Partnership include: diversifying entry level schemes, with members of the Collective integral parts of the VCCP Stoke Academy work, establishing a new approach to education through the ‘Celebrate’ series that focuses on different cultures, which help to foster a happy, integrated and understanding agency culture, and continuing to embed DE&I into staff development.

Julian Douglas, International CEO at VCCP Group said: “We are incredibly proud of the work that Sonia and The DEI Collective have done and continue to do. They are relentless in their passion and drive to change the narrative, and the way we do business and the industry as a whole.”

Sonia Gilchrist,  Head of DE&I at VCCP added: “We want the agency to live and breathe DE&I in everything we do and ensure that our principles are baked into all of our talent management initiatives from recruitment, retention, learning and development, to agency culture, and the work we produce. We couldn’t be more thrilled to have been recognised for a second year running.”

Sage will be the agency’s founding client

The UK’s leading creative agency VCCP, is today launching an AI creative agency called faith. The new agency will act as the Group’s Generative AI creative shop, producing work for new and existing clients and through a pioneering partnership with two universities will also act as an explorative R&D hub.

The agency launches globally and will work alongside VCCP’s seven international offices, servicing VCCP’s worldwide roster of clients. VCCP has created and been using generative AI tools for several years within its media, data, planning, production and UX/UI capabilities. This move sees the network further invest in their AI capabilities to accelerate and diversify their learning and client offering

faith will be spearheaded by VCCP Partnership CEO, Michael Sugden who will also become CEO of faith. The agency will launch with a collective of 14 practitioners made up of creatives, technologists, prompt engineers, strategists, data analysts and makers.

Talking about the agency’s ambition Sugden explains: “We have faith that AI, used responsibly, will be an unparallelled accelerator of human creativity and imagination. We reject the notion that AI will make human creativity obsolete. Sugden continues “We won’t realise this potential however by noodling around with MidJourney and Chat GPT. This is why we’re launching a dedicated agency to advance AI’s creative applications, accelerate our collective learning and share it quickly with our clients”.

faith launches with a founding client Sage, the leaders in accounting, financial, HR and payroll technology. Cath Keers, Chief Marketing Officer at Sage explains: “As a market leading technology company, thousands of Sage customers are already benefiting from AI solutions and services, elevating the work of humans and freeing them from repetitive administration tasks. AI also provides us with powerful insights that help us deliver a more personalised and human experience for our customers.

“We are excited about the possibilities of this collaboration and what it gives us from a creative agency perspective.”

faith launches with two knowledge sharing R&D partnerships with universities at the forefront of innovation in the creative and technology sectors.

A Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Staffordshire University’s Digital Technologies and Arts faculty will be focused on designing the new “frameworks for use” within the industry. A partnership with Keele University Business School will explore the implications of AI on the operational and commercial structure of businesses.

VCCP Partnership Chief Strategy Officer Michael Lee will also become CSO of faith. He explains “We’re delighted to have partnerships with two of the most forward-thinking universities in the UK. Staffs is a world leader in virtual production, and Keele University has already worked successfully with other industries such as law and architecture to develop and understand the implications and opportunity of real world applications of AI.”

Dr Colin Rigby, Director of Enterprise at Keele University’s Business School said: “We’re very excited to be working in partnership with VCCP. At KBS we’ve been exploring the potential of AI in areas as diverse as neuromarketing, net zero opportunities, customer service and work enrichment. The creative sector is an area of almost unlimited potential for successful application of these new AI capabilities.”

Professor Carlton Reeve, Associate Dean for Research and Enterprise, School of Digital, Technologies and Arts, Staffordshire University added: “We have a unique transdisciplinary approach that brings together expertise from diverse but complementary disciplines ranging from art and design to engineering including media, games and computing. Our partnership with VCCP is an important way to explore new ideas and ways of working with AI in the creative sector. It’s great for our staff to share and develop their expertise and for our students who gain invaluable real world experience.”

With the belief that AI should only ever be used for good, faith launches with a detailed generative AI policy based around four principles:

1. Be Transparent when AI is being used
2. Be Authentic, fact-check AI-generated content
3. Be Compliant and break no laws
4. Be Ethical, only use AI for good

The shop is actively recruiting for further prompt engineers. For further information on faith, please visit https://www.vccp.com/capabilities/ai.

VCCP Group, the global challenger network, has today announced the launch of a global gaming proposition, VCCP+. On a mission to help brands navigate and leverage the 2.7 billion person Gaming Multiverse, VCCP+ will deliver data-backed solutions to help brands build long-term value in the space and challenge the ways gaming is traditionally viewed and activated. With a unique approach and offering, VCCP+ will aim to upskill and tip the balance for modern marketers.

The current obsession with the Metaverse pipe dream is distracting the much needed attention away from the single largest unmet audience opportunity in marketing. The power of games as a medium and culture has been alarmingly misunderstood for too long. Gaming today is much more than just playing video games. It is a complex, thriving multiverse of distinct and diverse platforms, media and cultures – from content, to influencers, lifestyle, design, entertainment, and sports. With a third of the world’s population in its mix, gaming has a larger audience than even Facebook. But it’s not just its sheer size. Every touchpoint across the multiverse surpasses that of existing social and traditional channels of communication. Gaming content viewership on YouTube, for example, is bigger than HBO, Netflix, and Hulu combined. And these numbers will only continue to accelerate with a new generation of audience where gaming is a core part of their identity and social life.

Despite its popularity and abundance of opportunities, brands, marketers and even agencies have only really scratched the surface of gaming’s potential as the force in marketing to leverage. Investment in gaming is currently 100 times less than ad spend on Facebook and four times less than in print. VCCP+ aims to disrupt this status quo and will arm future-facing brands with the right data, expertise, ideas, and partnerships for an immediate marketing future where a gaming strategy and an always-on plan will be a critical necessity.

Jonny Shaw, CEO of VCCP+ said: “The gaming space is completely misunderstood, misused or relegated to being an experiment for marketers. It is the biggest unmet audience opportunity there is in marketing. Gaming represents the biggest entertainment vertical in the world and is constantly ignored by brands. As 90% of Gen Z identify as gamers, the audience of tomorrow is everyone. VCCP+ is here to challenge the status quo and offer brands a way to engage and tap into this demographic in a way that is authentic and will reduce media wastage.”

The traditional one-size-fits-all model will not work in the gaming multiverse. Launching with a proprietary methodology and tools built from the ground up to aid brands and marketers in making the right decisions, VCCP+ brings data-rich, actionable insights from the complex landscape with the goal of delivering long-term engagement and value, with the capabilities to measure and optimise marketing activities in the space.

Backed by a worldwide network of talent and partners, VCCP+ will tap into coders from VCCP CX and makers in the world of design and art, motion and 3D tech, from VCCP’s recently launched global content studio, Girl&Bear. Supporting this and working at the speed of culture, VCCP+ will also team up with leading production and content partners, collaborators at the intersections of sports, lifestyle and entertainment, as well as gaming publishers and influencers.

VCCP+ launches as a new practice within all VCCP offices worldwide, including New York, where it is headquartered, Madrid, Prague, San Francisco, London, Singapore, Sydney and Shanghai, and will be offered as core service to clients such as White Claw, Google and O2.

Welcome to The Challengers, our VCCP Business B2B podcast series where in each
episode, we go into the woods and challenge a bear.

Hear B2B leaders’ views on what’s holding B2B back and how to realise its full potential.
Across six podcasts we’re slaying the bears that need to be banished, with candour and
perspective in 20min roar sized chunks.

Available on your favourite device via Soundcloud, Spotify and Apple.

Bernadette brings together strategy & execution to make breakthrough products & services.

VCCP Group, the global challenger network, has today announced the launch of a new breed of Product & Service Innovation company, Bernadette. Born out of the 12 year heritage of the customer experience arm of the VCCP Group, VCCP CX, Bernadette is on a mission to bridge the gap between ‘digital strategy’ and the execution of ‘digital experiences’ to make breakthrough products & services.

Strategies, like ideas, are worthless to brands if they cannot be executed. Likewise, isolated and incremental improvements are highly unlikely to make a big impact. Bernadette has been engineered to put strategy into action, with a focus on helping brands break through – whether that’s the design and delivery of digital products and services that truly stand apart, or helping clients break through the many internal barriers standing in the way of getting there in the first place. Bernadette is directly targeting the big digital transformation consultancies, who typically lack practical execution experience – and the smaller digital execution agencies, who are typically divorced from brand purpose.

Bernadette launches with a commitment to bring strategy and execution together in one uncompromising collaborative solution – inventing new category-leading products and services, supercharging existing ones, and activating customer engagement and advocacy with digital experiences. In the process Bernadette will help their clients speed time to market, save wasted time and money, ensure that brand purpose and impact is delivered tangibly from idea to customer touchpoint and launch truly landmark digital experiences that go the distance – across the whole digital ecosystem. To directly underpin this commitment with their business model, Bernadette will work actively to tie its revenues directly to the desired outcomes for its client engagements – breaking the traditional rate card-based, project by project agency model.

With a team of 85 specialists from the world of strategy, design and engineering, Bernadette is headquartered in London and led by CEO, Scott Ewings. Ewings notably led Fjord, Ustwo and Potato in the UK, helping to establish them all as outstanding digital product and venture studios.

Joint Heads of the D&I collective Xi Yin Chen, Luke Alexander Grose and Lynsey Monroe were announced as Talent Management Team of the Year and the Campaign Awards.

Xi, Luke & Lynsey have shown their incredible passion for ensuring that anyone with drive and talent has an equal and fair chance to access and progress in our industry. From working closely with Chief Strategy Officer, Michael Lee and Executive Creative Director Jim Thornton on bringing the VCCP Stoke Academy to life to ensuring support throughout for VCCP’s entry level programmes, Xi, Luke and Lynsey have built a robust programme that has fostered a true culture of belonging at VCCP.

The trio were also commended for their relentless embedding of D&I into learning and staff development at VCCP, through educational D&I written features and cultural pieces, resources, inspirational talks, training sessions on topics such as trans awareness, inclusive design, disability in advertising, and many more.

Last year saw VCCP London launch The O2 in Fortnite Creative during the pandemic for music fans. This year VCCP Group is the first advertising network in the world to open its virtual office doors in Roblox.

Roblox is a global gaming social platform where millions of people gather together every day to imagine, create, and share experiences with each other. In 2021 Roblox grew their community to nearly 50 million daily active users across 180 countries from 32.6 million in the previous year before, spending a total of 9.7 billion hours on the platform. As a platform, it has grown rapidly in the last several years with big brands such as Nike, Chipotle, Vans, The BBC, and Netflix all creating their worlds in the game.

VCCP X Roblox is a reimagining of VCCP’s headquarters in London Victoria, Greencoat House; spearheaded by the Innovation team at VCCP to educate colleagues across their eight global offices about the opportunities within gaming, in a new, fun way. It also encourages them to experiment and build prototype ideas for the agencies’ brands.

Alex Dalman, Business Director – Innovation at VCCP London, said: ‘Gaming can be such an invisible world to non-gamers out there, especially for non-gamer marketeers, so we really wanted to show the possibilities within creative games like Roblox for VCCP employees and our clients, and also have a bit of fun too whilst we are at it. The only way to appreciate the scale of what can be achieved for brands is to try it out for yourself – go have a play now!”

The building features five floors and includes mini-games as well as Easter egg collectibles and fun homages to some of VCCP’s clients from across its global network and key features including a Compare The Market, Meerkat enclosure and O2’s friendly blue robot, Bubl. There are NPCs (non-playable characters) inside including VCCP Founders Charles Vallance and Adrian Coleman alongside well-known and loved office staff from VCCP London.

We are delighted to announce that VCCP Business has acquired Sling & Stone, a multi-award winning PR and communications agency with offices in Sydney, Auckland, and Los Angeles.

Sling & Stone launched in 2010 with a specific focus on startups, high-growth tech and challenger brands shaping the future. The agency has grown to three countries, 70 people, multiple agency of the year and best place to work awards, and a world-class client roster.

Through the acquisition, Sling & Stone will become part of VCCP Business, and will work in partnership with leading technology agencies Method in North America and Harvard in the UK, as well as advocacy specialist agency inEvidence. The combined global PR and communications group will help clients everywhere shape the future of how we live, work, and play.

It will grow our group’s technology billings to £30 million, with a 250+ strong team, cementing our global presence.

Sling & Stone, which was founded by Vuki Vujasinovic 11 years ago, has enjoyed rapid growth partnering with some of the most exciting startups, category-defining unicorns and publicly-listed industry leaders, including current clients Twitter, Google, Stripe, Xero, and Zip.

Jo Parker, Group CEO VCCP Business, said: “From the moment we met Vuki and his team, we had so much in common — a challenger mindset, a global ambition and a culture of collaboration and openness. We are really excited to work with all the Slingers and to build on our shared global vision.”

Vuki Vujasinovic, Founder and CEO of Sling & Stone, said: “We’ve been partnering with innovative and important brands for more than a decade now, playing a key role in their growth. Working with these types of clients is what we’re good at, and what we love doing.

“I’m so happy that we’ve found the perfect growth partner in VCCP Business. We have a shared vision to focus on telling these stories that are reshaping the world around us.

“Sling & Stone has always been mission-driven and ambitious, and we know our future is going to be even stronger with the smarts and the skills of the VCCP group backing us. We get to immediately plug into the global scale and skills of VCCP Business — unlocking reach and expertise for our clients, campaigns, and team.

“This is the beginning of a new and exciting chapter for Sling & Stone, and we’re just getting started.”

Our annual Chime Pride Get Together will be taking place on Thursday 25th June. This speaker panel event will be followed by Q&As and a chance to hang out after.

The speaker line-up is seriously impressive so make sure you don’t miss out:

Sandy Downs and Melissa McGowann – Chime Colleagues: Introducing the event, educating us on the connected history of pride and black people as well as helping us understand terms, pronouns and some queer slang.

Christopher Kenna – Founder and CEO of Brand Advance, diversity advocate in media and advertising and military veteran: Talking about his experience in this new environment of Pride and BLM and helping us understand the importance of reaching queer, niche audiences in their communities.

Ethan Spibey and Soren Scharf – Founders of Proud Beer, queer activists and campaigners: Talking about the challenge of running a queer brand that is both representative and gives back to a diverse community.

Rich Miles – CEO and co-founder the Diversity Standards Collective: Telling us about their research, project and findings into racism and their new programme to help organisations in the aftermath of BLM protests.