Adweek’s 2023 U.S. Agency of the Year Finalists

This year, Adweek is not only celebrating the best ad agencies in the business but also striving to help other shops understand what makes the best of the best truly stand out.

That’s why, for the first time, Adweek has a theme for its Agency of the Year awards program: Building a Better Agency. Adweek asked each finalist across all seven categories to explain how it is building a better agency for the future.

Last year, Anomaly took home the title of Adweek’s U.S. Agency of the Year.

How we got here

Adweek invited any agency to enter (without a fee) its yearly Agency of the Year awards program by providing information about its past year and best work.

A team of Adweek editors and reporters combed through the entries and generated a list of five finalists in each category. Adweek’s internal jury deliberated over these finalists, taking into account three main factors:

• Business success: client wins and losses, revenue growth, strategy and use of technology
• The work: a reel featuring the agency’s 10 best and most effective pieces of creative
• Talent and ESG: creating an environment for employees to succeed through its culture and benefits, as well as advancing DEI and sustainability

On Oct. 10, Adweek will reveal the winning agencies. Below, in alphabetical order, are the finalists for U.S. Agency of the Year.

Deutsch LA

The IPG agency recorded a turnover rate of about 6%, and it is one of a select group of holding company-owned shops truly putting in the hard work needed to be a more inclusive agency. It’s participating in the 13% pledge to increase Black leadership at the agency, investing in BIPOC talent with its Nourish mentorship pledge, continuing longstanding partnerships with the One Club and the 4A’s MAIP, and supporting Black-owned businesses with its Blackness in Full Bloom program.

Taco Bell, which puts culture at the core of its strategy, expanded its relationship with Deutsch LA. The agency extended its Mexican Pizza campaign with a musical featuring Dolly Parton, and used LeBron James to eliminate the trademark for Taco Tuesday. Deutsch LA also created one of the first great uses of ChatGPT in marketing for Snapple, and brought The Count in to help NerdWallet out.

How it’s building a better agency: “Tough moments breed opportunity for progress. And if you’re an agency with a rich legacy like Deutsch LA, your heritage can either serve as a barrier or a springboard. It depends on where you focus the energy,” said CEO Kim Getty. “This year we consciously directed our resources toward the part of our business most synonymous with making: our production studio, Steelhead. Since its inception, it’s been our secret weapon. We put maker/creator culture at the center of our process. This sparked new means of inspiration for our people. As a community, it enabled us to think of every project as its own new starting line.”

Goodby Silverstein & Partners

Agencies that can drive significant organic growth are ahead of the game right now, and Omnicom’s GS&P added scope with more than half of its clients in 2023. The agency, which works with PepsiCo, Frito-Lay, Autodesk and Kraft Heinz, also retained 100% of its AOR relationships so far this year. The agency has productized some of its services, creating sprints around emerging tech and brand strategy that have often been enablers of organic growth. It’s also added a chief growth officer—Cory Berger from Grey—to design a vision for the future.

The work stood out as well with multiple Super Bowl campaigns for Doritos and Sam Adams, a reimagining of the Lunchables product for Kraft Heinz and strong B2B work that uses humor to show off why businesses should use Autodesk.

How it’s building a better agency: “We are changing to connect with consumers who are actively trying to avoid ads. This especially means helping CMOs adapt quickly and navigating the constant influx of emerging technologies like AI and AR. It’s a new kind of problem-solving creativity,” said Leslie Barrett, president and partner. “To that end, we offer Innovation Camp to help clients see how new technologies can supercharge their offerings, and Brand Camp, a six-week strategy sprint that can help CMOs thoughtfully realign their businesses. Both of those capabilities fuel mass intimacy, which is our belief that experiences should reach millions but also speak individually to the consumer.” 

Mischief

Mischief’s meteoric rise through the agency world is truly astonishing. From a fledgling shop in the beginning of the pandemic to one that’s turning down 95% of its new business opportunities, Mischief has the ear of marketers—especially the 14 that handed Mischief their business without a pitch. It’s built a brand through big stunts, but over the past year it has shown off its chops for brand building for clients Tubi and Tinder, which have credited Mischief for financial success.

Mischief’s all-time retention stands at a hefty 98%, and it’s not hard to see why when the agency won the Super Bowl with its “Interface Interruption” work for Tubi and a commitment from the leadership to create an environment for employees to truly do their best work. “We have lived by the idea that if you focus on what makes you special, the money will follow. If you focus on the money, you will cease to be special,” said Greg Hahn, co-founder and CCO.

How it’s building a better agency: “We’re religiously focused on the one thing that can’t be commoditized—creativity. That means creating an environment where people can do the best work of their lives, free from the fear, and the layers and silos that get in the way of the work,” said Hahn. “It comes back to our founding mission, to be a safe space for dangerous ideas.” 

TBWA

Adweek’s back-to-back Global Agency of the Year in 2021 and 2022, TBWA had an outstanding 2023 in the U.S. behind stellar Apple work, one of the best TikToks by a brand in the history of the platform and purpose-based work for the Columbia Journalism Review and Cox Communications.

For Apple, TBWA created public displays of encouragement from Ted Lasso, released a number of brilliant product demos including “RIP Leon,” which won the coveted Grand Prix for film at Cannes, and left Timothee Chalamet wondering whether he’ll ever get an Apple show. Its 10-minute TikTok for Hilton pulled together the perfect recipe of talent from Paris Hilton to creators like GirlBossTown and Kelz Wright and figured out a way to keep viewers engaged throughout the full length of the video.

How it’s building a better agency: “This was definitely a year when the saying ‘the only thing certain is uncertainty’ rang particularly true. Those conditions can often stifle creativity, but TBWA is fortunate to be grounded by Disruption—a strategic methodology and spirit—that does quite the opposite,” said Erin Riley, CEO, TBWA\Chiat\Day LA. “In a way, Disruption is built for these times, and it shows in our best work—it always starts with an enduring, disruptive brand platform and then finds its way into culture with more and more versatility across the total experience.”

Wieden+Kennedy

Wieden+Kennedy recently retooled the leadership of its Portland and New York offices, with the biggest changes happening in the founding office of the indie network. Portland had a bit of an up-and-down year with lots of wins—MLB, Allstate and Ancestry—and some losses—TurboTax and Fisher Price. Despite the fluctuations, the work out of Wieden+Kennedy in the U.S. was extremely strong.

The agency created McDonald’s Grimace Shake—and even though it didn’t create the viral TikTok trend, W+K set the stage for internet culture to do its thing. Its Nike campaign for the Women’s World Cup captivated soccer fans, while its “Bring Home the Bud” pivot for the Men’s World Cup was equally outstanding.

Behind all the work are its people, whom Wieden takes care of to the tune of paying off student loans, investing in side hustles, profit sharing and a whole lot more. “We ask our people, ‘If it was your brand, what would you do?’ Create a Grimace Shake? Give away Budweiser to the country that won the World Cup? Name a limited-edition Mustang?” said Karl Lieberman, global CCO. “Everything’s on the table now.”

How it’s building a better agency: “Our thing has always been about hiring people with interesting, diverse perspectives on the world, and then supporting them to bring those unique points of view to the work we do. When you can find ways to mash up interesting people with interesting brands, that’s when you find your way into culture,” said Lieberman. “But now we’re leaning into that philosophy more than ever. Because we’re focused on having our people feel a real sense of ownership over the entire surface area of a brand—not just the ads—so that they’re thinking about the whole thing holistically.”