The Most Creative Agencies Inspire Purpose and Empower Consumers

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A couple of weeks ago, the Holmes Report issued their fourth annual Global Creative Index and the results found Weber Shandwick on top of the overall agency ranking after placing third last year.

The Holmes Report analyzes the entries and winners of more than 25 different award programs to determine agency placement in their index. Weber had a plethora of awards, including three top-10 campaigns that included ‘World Hunger Relief’, ‘Danone Nutricia Crisis’ and ‘Who Framed Master Kong.’

Here’s a list of the other agencies in the top ten this year compared to last year. The global agencies dominate if for no other reason than the sheer volume of awards they can enter.

The Holmes Report also indexed agencies according to head count or what they referred to as a “pound for pound” calculation of the most creative agencies in the world. The result is that none of the big names on the list above ended up on the list below, and the list is fairly diverse when it comes to geography. That may or may not be proof that size and location influence an agency’s level of creativity. However, it does suggest that the resources of a large agency don’t necessarily guarantee a creative bent.

Campaigns themselves were also indexed and Always #LikeAGirl developed by MSL Group and Leo Burnett took top honors by a significant margin. It’s core message of girl empowerment “...aimed to turn an insult into a movement for confidence among teenage girls.” The Holmes Report developed this particular ranking by using a formula that emphasized the Best in Show winners of the awards programs it incorporated into its overall index.


The results of the indexed campaigns reveal a few trends in the combination of content and execution of the winning campaigns:

  •      Inspiring social purpose aligned with disruptive creative
  •      Consumer empowerment
  •      Integration of earned, owned and paid media

It will be interesting to see who ends up in the index next year and just how many campaigns will continue to reflect these trends. In the meantime, anyone who believes that creativity and PR are not aligned, need only look at the index to be proven otherwise.