Check Out The Top Work Of The Media Agency Finalists In B&T Awards

In today’s edition of our B&T Awards finalist showcase, we’re canvassing the top notch media agency finalists, where we take a peek at the calibre of entries for three of the best.

With just a few weeks left until the awards, and the B&T office scrambling to get our outfits sorted (not to mention the night itself!) there’s barely a handful of tickets left, so if you’re yet to grab any, see here.

Today, we look at the entries from Carat, Atomic 212, and McCann.

Carat Australia

Carat Australia is currently ranked the country’s largest and most successful media agency according to RECMA. As the agency of choice for some of the world’s best brands and brightest talent, Carat has gone from strength to strength over the past 12 months, cementing our number one position in an increasingly complex and competitive market.

Our momentum is strong and our ambition single-minded: to be the best.

At Carat, every day we strive to redefine the role a media agency should play as a true partner for its clients, sharing the responsibility for measurable business outcomes.

And with that in mind, Carat Australia’s 2015/2016 has been one for the record books.

We have been relentless in our dedication to doing ground-breaking work for a market-leading roster of clients; to connecting our smart and innovative team with the tools and resources to bring their best ideas to life; and to making the Carat name synonymous with excellence in the Australian market.

We’re proud to say that the past year has been our best one yet – a fantastic 12 months kicked off with the honour of being crowned B&T’s Media Agency of the Year 2015.

As they say though, ‘heavy is the head that wears the crown’. To prove we’ve been doing anything but resting on our laurels since you last saw us, here are our highlights for the judging period:

• Achieved dual #1 RECMA ranking – qualitative (Dec ’15, May’16) and quantitative (2015)
• Named AdNews ‘Media network of the Year’ 2015/16
• Celebrated 100 per cent Client Retention
• Welcomed new clients including: Greenstone Financial, Baptcare, Stratco, The West Australian, Sequiris, My Budget, and Road Safety Commission
• Opened our fifth Australian office – Carat SA – giving us a truly national footprint
• Ranked in the top three performing agencies in every capital city
• Introduced flexible working hours initiative, ‘Flex it Your Way’
• ‘Walking the talk’ on diversity; 10 national executive leaders with a 50:50 gender ratio

McCann

In 2016, McCann again won Gold at Cannes and was the top ranked Australian agency at the APAC Effies and the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards. At the same time, it added over $90m in media billings.

Not bad for a creative agency.

Not bad for a media agency either.

There’s a lot to be said for the way McCann does business. The innovation is real, the thinking is genuinely different, and for that the agency says it owes the 17^th Century Dutch a little credit.

Why? Well they say all you need to know about advertising can be learned from the Dutch Golden Age.

It starts and ends with trust.

And the Dutch knew a thing or
 two about trust.

Indeed, the Dutch, much like the Lanisters of today, made a fortune by being trusted to execute the most basic of commercial imperatives – deliver on their promises.

And they reinvested this trust into sailing beyond the horizon.

This is where the metaphor and indeed the history, gets really interesting. The Dutch reinvested this trust into the natural resources around them – timber and wind – innovating their commercial offering to chart new horizons.

The point is, don’t complain about the wind. Build a windmill.

It’s a geographically charmless country the Netherlands. Flat and windy. And much more windy than flat. Don’t think too hard about that comparison, but rather, think about the ingenuity of these people.

They didn’t complain about the wind. They built windmills. Which built ships. Which took them all over the world.

Some have suggested the winds of change are blowing against the advertising industry as the lines between creativity, media and digital blur evermore.

McCann begs to differ, and like the 17^th century Dutch, they always bring home the gold.

Atomic 212°

We are an independent, technology-driven, full service media and advertising agency. We opened our doors in early 2014. In two years, client billings have grown from a base of $20m to $250m. All wins have been independently earned with no global alignments. We have worked hard to grow.

AGENCY OF THE FUTURE:

Atomic 212° is a streamlined network of three core creative media companies, ring-fenced by a central communication advisory and management business (CCAMB).

The creative media companies are not silos. The creative media companies are divisions de ned by broad territory of expertise, with no room for media verticals:

CCAMB: Client service/management. Strategy: Pioneering thinking, problem solving Performance media: Driving retail outcomes Brands: Driving brand outcomes

Clients want a service that is reliable, on brand and relevant at that given moment in time. They want one platform to make that happen for them. The CCAMB is the glue that integrates all divisions and capabilities, and has driven considerable commercial growth since Atomic 212° opened its doors in Q1 2014.

Future models and data-centric competitors would lack human connections, become distanced from core company values and create barriers to insight collaboration. This was a space we could thrive in.

TURNOVER: 97.5 per cent STAFF RETENTION STAFF GROWTH: 21 TO 100 IN TWO YEARS

CULTURAL FOCUS:

Atomic 212° was conceptualised with the philosophy that we could do good without doing bad. We call it corporate karma and it extends beyond the bottom line.

The agency is implementing small changes and experimenting with unique ways of working in order to create a flexible work environment to foster creativity. 2016 has been marked by reinvention, innovation and cultural evolution. To deliver on our goals for 2016, our values were redefined and realised by our people.

• Integrity, transparency, shared education, respect, and 
teamwork
• A belief that the good customers are king
• Self-motivation, zest, collaboration, and the courage to 
lead
• Build relationships based on doing the right thing
• Innovate, investigate and articulate through imagination

KEY CULTURAL PROGRAMS:

Phase one ‘Talk First’ Initiative

• Face-to-face interaction and ban on internal emails.
• Co-determination: Staff sit on board and have personal vested interest in our success and culture.
• The CEO presents monthly ‘Cultural Achievement Awards’:

1. a) The Golden James Cook Award: employee of the month b) The Golden Heart for helpful employees
c) The Golden Shark’s Tooth: the hardest worker

Phase two ‘The Fresh Air Project’

• Flexible outdoor work environment, standing desks, remote office strategies and hot-desking.

Phase three ‘Health and fexibility’

• Employees utilize office Double Robotics telepresence robot to attend meetings and workshops from their home and abroad.
• ‘Yoga on the Wharf’: Complimentary yoga for the community and industry members every Tuesday morning.

Other programs:
a) Subsidised gym membership and health insurance b) CEO for a Day

Phase four ‘Tangible, real diversity’

• Gender equality: Female board members, over 50% 
senior female sta
• Cultural diversity quota
• Charity: UNLTD, Ride to conquer cancer and CEO Jason 
Dooris personally drove in Variety Bash. 
These cultural initiatives have led to agency wins including a silver gong in the Cool Company Awards 2015.