AKQA had a solid 2023 season. Its success at Cannes Lions was undoubtedly a highlight, picking up nine trophies including a Grand Prix for its “Never Done Evolving” campaign for Nike. That same campaign for Nike even scooped the Best Use of Tech Award at the B&T Awards.

AKQA won 14 clients in the ‘23 season. Most of these were on a project basis but across a wide-ranging scope of work and capabilities. In the first three months of the season, the agency worked with the University of Melbourne on digital strategy, Coca-Cola on a mobile game and edtech firm Keypath on experience optimisation.

Later in the year, it picked up ecommerce website design and development for Warner Music and technology, data and analytics for the proof of concept of an emergency services tool for the Country Fire Authority. It also picked up the brand strategy work for an Australian bank on a retainer — its only new retained contract during the year, though it added to the healthy 16 other retainers it holds. Sadly, AKQA said the win was highly confidential and that it couldn’t reveal the client.

AKQA’s Australian team also had a more global flavour than many of its contemporaries from other agencies. Working with AKQA São Paulo, it created the “Transparency Card” for Congresso em Foco, transforming mobile phones into real-time monitors of public spending to help tackle political corruption in Brazil. The work picked up two gold and three silver Cannes Lions.

It also expanded its Action Audio work to the NBA. Having been created in partnership with Tennis Australia, Action Audio was welcomed into the global NBA Launchpad cohort, the league’s initiative to identify new technology to be used on and off the court. Action Audio works to make the game more accessible to sports fans who have blindness or low vision. This project has progressed to the pilot stage to run at scale in the future.

In September 2023, Australia MD Alisia Muscat departed the agency to become the chief operating officer of Today. Muscat was replaced by Jeremy Smart in October 2023. 

There is, of course, one small elephant in the room. In 2024, AKQA was merged with fellow WPP-owned agency WhiteGREY. The latter was absorbed into AKQA, with team captain Brian Vella helming the new combined agency and AKQA assuming management of Grey’s studios around the world. We’ll see how that merger plays out in AKQA’s 2025 Agency Scorecard.