Jan 2008 A Good Year for Iris Direct – Marketing Agency of the Year
Since it is now all about Iris, I thought I’d pull out some background on the place. High growth, good work, people focused, independent and ambitious. It is a nice mix.
Agency of the Year 2007: Direct Agency of the Year – Best of the rest
Hours of painstaking deliberation could not help the judges separate the joint runners-up for the Direct Agency of the Year award – Iris and Partners Andrews Aldridge.
were particularly impressed with its string of diverse and heavyweight
new business wins this year. The integrated agency demonstrated its
ability to deliver on mail briefs, with other business units offering
expertise on sales promotion, sports sponsorship and experiential
marketing campaigns.Iris is now the global sponsorship agency for ING, lead global digital
agency for Shell, a digital roster agency for Coca-Cola, and was hired
by Southern Comfort for an EMEA brief. It also won promotional briefs to
support Unilever’s Sure, Lynx and Vaseline brands, as well as UK direct
marketing business for Gala Bingo.
Iris has been recruiting to accommodate this increase in business. The
most high-profile appointment came in May, with the arrival of former
British Airways finance director Drew Thompson as chairman. The agency
also poached Archibald Ingall Stretton’s Alistair Bryan and WWAV Rapp
Collins’ Paul Beier.
Green issues have continued to rise up the corporate agenda, and the
selected agencies were asked to provide evidence of their own
environmental credentials.
In March, Iris took part in ‘Lights out London’, which saw the agency
cut its energy consumption by 30%. It also runs recycling initiatives
and a ‘bike to work’ scheme, among other programmes.