Best agencies rewarded in the Agency of the Year survey

Alma Media       Press release                                               10 February 2017

BEST AGENCIES REWARDED IN THE AGENCY OF THE YEAR SURVEY

The winners of Agency of the Year—a survey covering the entire Finnish marketing communications industry—were announced at a gala on Friday 10 February 2017. The following agencies were ranked the best in the following seven categories, based on assessments by customers:

Marketing communication agencies*:
Sales margin over EUR 5 million: Bob the Robot
Sales margin under EUR 5 million: Superson

Customer insight agencies:
Kopla

Design agencies:
Pentagon Design

Technology and marketing agencies:
P+SBD

Media agencies:
Mindshare

Communications, PR and content agencies:
Republic of Communications

In addition, the following agencies received honourable mentions for their specialist services: Dagmar, N2 Albiino and Folk Finland.

The Agency of the Year survey

The survey evaluates the agencies’ operations based on the customer service experience and realised projects/results. A total of 725 interviews were accepted in the final data in 2016. Most of the interviews were carried out as online questionnaires for the customer registers provided by the companies themselves. Data was amended with telephone interviews.

There were a total of 58 agencies in the different categories. The different categories had contestants as follows: marketing communication agencies (sales margin over EUR 5 million) 8; marketing communication agencies (sales margin under EUR 5 million) 15; customer insight agencies 4; design agencies 10; technology and marketing agencies 6; media agencies 8; and communications, PR and content agencies 7. Four agencies competed in two categories.

Criteria for participation were the assessments by customers, as well as the company’s sales margin and investments in marketing by the buyers. Each agency was expected to have at least eight assessments by different customers, and each category had a minimum limit for the company’s 12-month sales margin (in EUR). Furthermore, the respondents were expected to be established clients, having worked with the evaluated agency for at least three months and invested in marketing at least EUR 30,000 over the past 12 months. 

The survey assessed the selection criteria and cooperation with the customer in a number of ways: project management and leadership, brand expertise, content generation and creativity, business excellence, digital expertise, quality/price ratio perceived by the customer, achievement of set goals, likelihood of good references, weaknesses and areas of development, the customer’s willingness to change agencies or reasons for the change, and the customer’s wishes for expert services in the future.

The survey was free of charge for the participants. The customers providing the assessments had an active customer relationship with the agencies over the past 12 months. All the agencies and all the respondents will receive a summary of the survey. Agency-specific reports are also available (for a fee).

Based on the Årets Byrå concept developed by the Swedish company Regi, Agency of the Year is a survey on customer satisfaction among the buyers of marketing, advertising and communication services, as well as the most significant criteria influencing the choice of agency and trends in the marketing industry. This was the first time the survey was organised in Finland. The market research agency Norstat Finland will be responsible for collecting data and analysing the results, while the concept’s marketing and deployment will be the responsibility of Alma Media, the Association of Finnish Advertisers and the marketing agency selection consultancy Breezeway.

For more information, please contact: Elina Kukkonen, Marketing Director, Alma Media Solutions, tel. +358 (0)10 665 2333

Alma Media in brief

Alma Media is a media company focusing on the service business and journalistic content. The company’s best-known brands are Kauppalehti, Talouselämä, Affärsvärlden, Iltalehti, Aamulehti, Etuovi.com and Monster. Alma Media builds sustainable growth for its customers by utilising the opportunities of digitality, including information services, system and expert services and advertising solutions. Alma Media’s operations have expanded from Finland to the Nordic countries, the Baltics and Central Europe. Alma Media employs approximately 2,300 professionals (excluding delivery personnel), of whom approximately 30% work outside Finland. Alma Media’s revenue in 2016 was EUR 353.2 million. Alma Media’s share is listed on NASDAQ Helsinki. Read more at www.almamedia.com.

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