PHD, part of Omnicom Media Group, has earned recognition as Campaign’s (international advertising publication) inaugural Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Media Network of the Year 2018. This follows a year which saw the agency win 132 pitches across the region with 275 new employees and 73 industry awards.
Described by Campaign as a clear winner of the award, PHD closed 2018 winning over $700million in new businesses across EMEA, including HSBC, Oatly, VF Corporation Europe (which has a portfolio of brands including Timberland, The North Face and Vans) and Unilever across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Additionally, PHD offices across EMEA picked up 73 industry awards, including five local ‘Agency of the Year’ accolades in France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands and Spain, and Campaign’s inaugural UK Media Leader of the Year won bythe Chief Executive Officer, PHD Worldwide, Mike Cooper.
PHD has also been named ‘Media Network of the Year’ at Eurobest and Cristal Festival. The addition of 275 employees and three new offices has seen PHD EMEA grow to 2,630 workforce across 58 offices in 47 countries, all operating under the mantra of “finding a better way”.
Rather than striving to be the biggest agency, PHD has focused on brilliant strategic thinking to drive client’s growth. Its success in industry awards underlines its reputation as one of the smartest and creative media networks in the world. One example is the launch of the Volkswagen T-Roc, which saw offices across EMEA localise the global communications strap line of “born confident” with great success in the UK, Italy, Spain and Ireland.
PHD’s strong culture also received high praised from the judging panel at Campaign, describing the agency’s employee engagement strategy as “on point”. The key themes of openness and inclusion focused on initiatives around mental health and disability awareness trainings, ensuring PHD is operating as an inclusive agency, opening its doors to the more diverse, creative and strategic talent in the industry.
On the feat, the Chief Executive Officer, PHD EMEA, Ian Clarke, said it is a great honour to be recognised by Campaign, adding that 2018 has been a phenomenal year for the organisation.
He stated: “We are immensely proud of our continued business growth and would like to thank all our employees, clients and partners for their belief and commitment in PHD. At the heart of our acceleration is PHD’s mantra, vision, our culture of finding a better way in all we do. Our outstanding year is a testament to all our PHD EMEA talent who aspire to do exactly this for our clients every single day.”
Delighted at this development, Managing Director, PHD Nigeria, Dozie Okafor said the win could not have come at a better time as the consolidation of the Unilever Business across Africa, which started with the local win in the country. This is in addition to the MTN Business across Africa which has gone a long way to reinforce PHD leadership position on the continent.
This year, Campaign has created a new ‘Media Network of the Year’ award for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It evaluated agency performance based on clients and work, business performance, talent and leadership.
PHD is known globally as an innovator in communications planning and buying across broadcast, print, digital, mobile, social and emerging media, reflected in the network, ranking second most awarded network in the world, according to the 2019 WARC Media 100 report – a benchmark of the most creatively awarded agencies and networks.
PHD Nigeria Limited, duly registered in Nigeria, started operations in 2010 and serves as a hub for PHD West African operations.
