In a year of turmoil for the industry, VCCP has kept its head down and its spirits up, getting on with winning new business, expanding existing client relationships, raising its creative game, and generally outrunning its competitors, making it MAA’s choice for agency of the year 2025.
Led by smart operators who always perform without ever being performative, it’s an agency that seems to follow its own path, almost in parallel with the rest of the industry. PE-backed VCCP gets on with the business of advertising seemingly unruffled by any chaos that might be going on around them.
Michael Sugden, co-CEO, VCCP Group, said: “2025 has been a whirlwind, so we’re incredibly proud to be named MAA’s Agency of the Year. This recognition belongs to our people and the clients who put their trust in us. Huge thanks to the MAA team.”
Too often pigeonholed as a new business machine, VCCP’s creative work has always been better than it is given credit for and in 2025 that was reflected on the awards circuit, with last year’s “Daisy vs the scammers” for O2 winning a Gold Lion while providing a perfect example of the agency’s enviable ability to keep dialling up the creativity on long-term clients.
Also for O2, VCCP finally ditched Bubl the robot and introduced the “Essential for living” line, which escalated the work to the same standards more normally associated with the output for Cadbury (another long-standing partner). Creative highlights include the debut work for Barclays, “Moments of progress,” and for Direct Line, “That’s how it’s done.” For Cadbury, “Memory” (below) and “Made to share” also stood out.
In a world that’s getting ever-more complicated, VCCP continues to simplify its offering and this year rolled all its PR and comms agencies together as VCCP Roar, while its various social media agencies became VCCP Social Club. It’s the kind of clarity that clients like, and it’s not surprising that new business under chief growth officer Stephanie Brimacombe (also CEO of EMEA and VCCP Roar) has once again been the envy of the industry.
The big wins were Barclays, Direct Line Group (Churchill, Direct Line, Green Flag) and Centrica (Hive and British Gas), and there were plenty of others including De’Longhi, All England Lawn Tennis Club, Co-op Funeralcare, and surviving a TfL review. Not that VCCP wins everything – the FT, Ladbrokes and Häagen-Dazs slipped through the net – but it’s hard to imagine anything sending its formidable pitch machine off-track.
Runners up
Special mention for two other agencies who’ve also led the charge and escaped the industry doom loop in 2025: Mother and Lucky Generals. Mother – which pulled in 70% of its new business direct from clients this year – is still delivering probably the best and most influential creative output in the industry.
Meanwhile Lucky Generals’ ability to win clients and make culturally relevant work has seen it emerge intact from the quagmire of the Omnicom-IPG merger.
