Agency of the Year: Sales Promotion Agency of the Year - Iris

Founded in 1999, Iris has grown rapidly into one of the biggest below-the-line shops in the UK. It has sustained double-digit growth in both revenue and gross profit since its debut and its forecasted turnover for 2006 is £42m, a jump of more than 50% on the £26m posted in 2005.

Behind this expansion are some impressive business wins. This year it has picked up work from Coca-Cola, Wonderbra, Sony Consumer Electronics and Harrods.

They joined a client list that includes CNN, Shell and Sony Ericsson, for which Iris handled its annual Ibiza Rocks event as well as the launch of its Walkman phone.

The Wonderbra campaign is a good example of how Iris is using multiple channels to deliver promotional activity. The agency's experiential division organised fashion shows to promote the brand's new range, adding PR and digital activity to attract consumers to the events.

The online activity was viewed by more than 14.2m consumers, every fashion show was oversubscribed, and research conducted via a questionnaire indicated that attendees were telling their friends about the campaign. Most importantly, the events translated into sales: Debenhams and Figleaves recorded a significant rise on the back of the event. In total, the estimated return on investment for the activity was 56:1.

Iris has been particularly successful in winning public-sector contracts, including an integrated campaign for Network Rail, a partnership marketing drive around climate change and a 'guide to voting' to be distributed to teenagers when they turn 18.

Iris was also appointed by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) to develop a partnership marketing campaign to raise awareness of its 'Know before you go' campaign, which encouraged travellers to prepare more before going abroad. Iris recruited partners including Sainsbury's Bank, Halifax, Lonely Planet and Western Union.

The campaign aimed to encourage British tourists to take out travel insurance to reduce the number of cases being handled by consulates overseas. The activity saw a return on investment of 11:1, as well as a marked change in consumer behaviour. Traffic to the FCO website jumped 33% and calls to the FCO hotline by 62%. An estimated 3.9m more travellers took out insurance than would have done so without the activity.

The success of these campaigns has put the agency in a position to consider further expansion overseas. It already has offices in New York and Singapore; next year it plans to launch in Munich, Mumbai and New Delhi to match its clients' expansion. As a result, joint chief executives Ian Millner and Stewart Shanley took up global roles earlier this year, with Sam Noble, Steve Bell and Adam Wright taking over in the UK.

The agency's rapid growth has meant recruitment is a constant challenge. Its headcount rose from 180 to 250 in 2006 alone. This year it established Iris Potential, a graduate recruitment programme involving partnerships with Bath, Manchester, Kingston, Birmingham and Derby universities.

It has also used more mischievous methods to lure talent away from rival agencies. Rather than taking out job ads or resorting to headhunters, it hired a van with a poster emblazoned on the side announcing that it was looking for staff, then drove it outside the offices of some of adland's biggest shops. Such is the agency's reputation that more than 100 people furtively left their details.

Iris has also bolstered its senior line-up this year to boost its expertise in sectors other than sales promotion. Alistair Bryan joined from AIS to oversee its direct marketing division, while George Nimeh, formerly a client at Red Bull and Monster, will manage digital.

The agency must be doing something right - it was listed in the top-100 small companies to work for in the Sunday Times. But after such a successful year, one of the biggest challenges it faces will be to manage its growth in the 12 months ahead.

BEST OF THE REST

Integration continues to be the hot topic within sales promotion. The days of a simple on-pack promotion are long gone, and the best agencies are not afraid to use a range of channels to achieve their goals.

Several agencies have prospered by taking this approach. Among these is The Big Kick. An established sales promotion agency with some big-name clients, it has had a spectacularly successful year, with turnover leaping 336% to £5.5m. A notable highlight was its work for Branston Baked Beans, for which it handled a campaign for Premier Foods called 'The Great British Bean Poll'. The activity, which involved experiential and PR activity as well as standard sales promotion, helped establish the brand and picked up the Grand Prix at the Institute of Sales Promotion (ISP) Awards.

One of the agency's biggest and oldest clients is Walkers, and here too it has been experimenting with strategies beyond the bounds of traditional activity. Its 'Crisp Crusaders' initiative involved teams of people singing to queues of customers in Boots - a tactic that raised the brand's sales through the chain by 17%.

Another established agency that had a good year is Billington Cartmell. Its turnover grew by 43% in 2004/05, and it is on course to beat that figure in the current financial year.

Key to its growth has been its ability to offer clients multi-channel promotions. It has established an experiential division that has grown rapidly, as well as specialist broadcast, retail and children's units.

The agency's client list includes Pot Noodle, Lucozade and Green & Black's, and this year it strengthened its hand outside FMCG with wins from Panasonic, Mazda and Lloyds TSB.

A tie-up between Lucozade and the World Rally Championship led to 7.6m incremental sales, 13% ahead of target. And its Nescafe campaign starring TV fashion advisers Trinny and Susannah delivered a 32% incremental sales uplift.

Elvis picked up the ISP's Agency of the Year prize after winning five gold awards. The agency is only three years old, but has already become a major player, with a headcount now at 60. It posted double-digit increases in turnover and profit in the year to September 2006, and is likely to be a top-10 agency next year.

Its growth has come on the back of work for clients such as Mitchells & Butlers, Pizza Hut and Subaru. Work Elvis conducted for O'Neills around rugby's Six Nations tournament led to a 60% leap in sales.

Like many younger agencies, digital forms a key part of its business, and is expected to account for 25% of turnover this financial year.

BD-NTWK has shown how powerful a promotion can be when it has a strong idea at its heart. The agency's award-winning 'Win a player' campaign for Coca-Cola, which ran for the second time this year, leveraged the brand's sponsorship of the Football League with a promotion that would appeal to fans. The free prize draw offered fans the chance to win £250,000 for their team and £10,000 for themselves. It received more than 1m entries in its first year, and 2m in this year's version.

Under a new management team, BD-NTWK is thriving. New clients this year include Tesco, eBay and Peugeot. Turnover is up by more than 10% to £13m, and its headcount has increased by 26.

Among the smaller agencies, Intelligent Marketing is one to watch. Founded three years ago, it has grown rapidly to a turnover level of about £2.5m, picking up some big-name clients along the way, including Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker and Guinness.

Client wins in 2006 included HSBC and Monster.com, and among its major work was a tie between Woolworths and The Tussauds Group that encouraged the store's customers to spend more to gain money-off vouchers for Tussauds attractions. The result was a 20% increase in basket volume.

Another agency to watch is Space, which more than doubled in size during 2006. With a gross profit of £1.3m, it is still relatively small, but this year put itself on the map by handling a promotion for Eurostar based on its tie-up with the movie of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

The activity, which took the form of a quest that players had to complete, helped raise advance bookings between London and Paris by 20%.

With a client list that also includes Nivea and Land Rover, Space is certainly making waves.