It has been a breakout season for Nunn Media, which hit a number of personal bests along to hitting new heights towards the end of the year.

The headline figure is that Nunn won 14 clients, including Bakers Delight, Melbourne Airport, GWS Giants, Seafolly and Tinder. On the flip side, only two clients chose to swipe left, Peloton and Amart Furniture. Both brands left for Omnicom agencies.

But right at the end of the year, Nunn Media kicked a huge goal by picking up the Spotlight Retail Group media account with billings in excess of $90 million. Nunn claims this is the largest-ever win by an independent media agency and that it takes their overall billings north of $500 million.

That claim might sound contentious to the wider industry; COMvergence reported that Nunn Media’s billings fell short of $200 million. Nunn is adamant it was around the $400 million mark prior to Spotlight’s switch.

Nonetheless, that is impressive growth for the indie, which also broke through the 200 staff milestone for the first time.

In fact, staff retention was 94 per cent and client retention was 97 per cent – both are close to industry-leading permanence metrics.

Although it would not disclose its financials for confidentiality reasons, Nunn claims its key commercial metrics grew by more than a third.

The agency has pumped some of its commercial success back into evolving its products with the launch of three new tools. Augment, an audience segmentation tool, developed with The Trade Desk; Apropos, a dynamic creative generation and distribution platform; and Blu, an audience targeting platform that uses first and third party data to help clients overcome challenges faced by new privacy regulations.

Nunn is taking steps to reduce its carbon footprint, working with the Payback Project and Scope3. It has also engaged in futurist Craig Rispin to help with its push into AI.

Like any good boxer, Nunn Media talked a good talk in 2023, and it also delivered a few knockout blows among its competitive set.