BMB: Big changes promise much

BMB’s 2024 was a year of internal change and reordering with several key hires joining CEO Jason Cobbold's top bench. Most notable of these was the hiring of Laurent Simon in April as chief creative officer.

In an interview with Creative Salon earlier this year, Cobbold described the year as a “reset” in which a focus lies on continuing to build reputation for brilliant creativity and solid strategy.

He tells us more about BMB's year and his future hopes for the industry.  

Jason Cobbold, CEO, on the agency's 2024

What have been the major highlights for your business in 2024?

We’ve had some brilliant people join the agency, including welcoming Laurent as our CCO, who brought with him a stellar track record of creativity and has been a fantastic addition to the team. 

Winning the Funkin Cocktails pitch and developing bold, energetic work for them was a standout moment. We also played a pivotal role in the incredible growth of the Italian pasta brand La Famiglia Rana, helping them drive a huge leap in sales and increase prompted awareness of the brand from 18 per cent to 40 per cent. 

The launch of our brand strategy arm, Forge, demonstrated an investment in BMB’s exceptional strategy and design talent. The Forge team has worked on brand strategy and design projects for Rewind TV, The Belonging project and the launch of an exciting new Mezcal brand since going to market in July.   

2024 has been a year of setting our business up for future success and ensuring we are equipped to respond to the needs of our clients as our industry evolves. We’ve recommitted to showing that across industries, geographies and audiences 'The Most Human Brand Wins' and are looking forward to going into 2025 in a strong position with a team of extremely talented people. 

What is your proudest achievement from the last 12 months?

During what has been a tricky year for the industry, maintaining an agency culture that is determined, kind and has a clear position in the market.

What are you most looking forward to next year?

I’m looking forward to working in exciting new categories and with new products that we have not touched before.  

What do you feel have been the greatest industry challenges for agencies this year and why?

The stop-start nature of budgets - we are an industry accustomed to retained behaviour and need to adapt to a business model that has shifted to being based on projects and flexibility. 

We’ve also seen growing expectations placed on in-house capability, with the lines being blurred between what is done internally and what is commissioned externally. 

Has the addition of any AI solution made the profound impact on your business that was expected? If so – what?

This has been a year of experimentation and exploration. Next year will be about acting on rather than talking about the impact of AI to make our work work even harder.   

What one change would you most like to see happen in the ad industry next year?

A deeper and firmly-held belief in the value of creativity in our industry - and pricing our product accordingly.

Creative Salon on BMB’s 2024 

BMB started the year with a handful of new hires and promotions as it embarked on Cobbold's "reset". Matt Bonny was elevated to head of growth from head of account management, while Emma Gunning joined as new business lead from BBH London. 

Most profound was the arrival of the genial and thoughtful Laurent Simon as chief creative officer in April, replacing Matt Lever who left the role at the end of 2023, further bolstering the changes in senior leadership. Additional change included the hiring of Pim Lai as creative director, making the move to London from Singapore where she was creative director at TWBA\Media Arts Lab. 

In terms of creative output, BMB's work showed a breadth in style and sector. A campaign for charity Breast Cancer Now shone a spotlight on the value of time for people living with incurable secondary breast cancer. Using AI a ‘Gallery of Hope’ was created and aimed to highlight the importance of continuing research - the one thing that can help those living with the disease reach the future moments they wish for. 

‘Left Unsaid’, again with Breast Cancer Now, raised awareness of how those living with breast cancer often conceal their emotions, as part of their wider ‘Real Talk’ campaign. The social campaign further highlighted how the charity is the place to turn to for anything and everything to do with breast cancer - all the while it encouraged people to open up conversations on the topic.

April brought BMB's debut work with the Great British Racing, the British Horseracing Authority and racing’s Horse Welfare Board, which looked to increase both engagement levels with the sport and public trust around equine welfare and safety. 

BMB's brand strategy and design arm, BMB Forge, launched its debut work with Rewind TV, which saw a complete development of the independent television channel’s brand identity and strategy. The work saw Forge create a new logo for Rewind TV alongside new animations and indents to implement its new identify across all of its platforms.

Creative Salon says… 2024 has been a year of restructure for BMB where changes in personnel meant finding its feet was priority.  It is to its credit this happened without major upheaval. With Laurent Simon settled in, 2025 should be the year when his creative impact will be truly felt.