Mother: Setting The Standards Of Excellence

When you want to know what excellence looks like, you look to Mother. The agency is consistently brilliant, with a first class team once again producing world-beating work in 2024.

So this year saw Mother continuing to 'make its children proud', with standout work for brands including IKEA, KFC and M&S. And the business is on track to have its best year ever for income, which saw its biggest clients grow by 41 per cent and its 10 new additions making up 15 per cent of the year’s income.

WIth CCO Felix Richter now well established as one of the world's best creative leaders and standing alongside the quietly brilliant Chris Gallery and Katie Mackay-Sinclair at the forefront of the agency, Mother continues to set the bar for the entire industry. And with the genius of co-founder Robert Saville and global CEO Michael Wall behind them, there's no stopping this team.

Here Katie Mackay-Sinclair, partner at Mother, tells-all about the agency’s year.  

Katie Mackay-Sinclair, partner, on the agency's 2024

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

Celebrating the creative and commercial impact of long-term relationships with our clients. We’ve been delighted to receive creative and effectiveness awards across our three longest-running and largest pieces of business - IKEA, KFC and Uber. That’s been a real highlight for us for sure; not because of the awards per se, but because those brands and the people we work with have grown with us and been such an important part of our story for so many years now, it’s great to see the hard work and commitment to each other continue to pay off.

What is your proudest achievement from the last 12 months?

We’re not an agency that lives to win awards, so this is probably an unexpected choice, but I think that being named by The Sunday Times as one of the ‘Best Places to Work” in the UK has to be up there. We always say that you come to Mother to make the work of your lives, and we aim to create a supportive working environment to facilitate this. Being recognised alongside some of the biggest brands in the country for our approach is both flattering and reassuring.

What are you most looking forward to next year?

We have a lot in the pipeline for 2025; both in terms of our work with clients and the work of continuing to build the Mother Family. I’m excited about both, but the opportunity to offer something different as a Family of independent, creative businesses is what I’m most excited about as I look ahead to the next twelve months.

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

Business uncertainty before the elections definitely played its part, but the real challenge has been in protecting the creative ambition against an ever more tricksy battle in forecasting and resourcing. We’re all accustomed to the project-based world but it feels it’s been made all the more difficult over 2024 thanks to a worrying trend of disappearing pitches and last-minute client budget cuts. With Employer’s NI increase hitting next year, it’s all just going to get more challenging.

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

While we’ve certainly seen the benefits, I don’t think we’re feeling a truly profound impact yet. I really can’t wait for it to have a transformative effect on the admin that weighs so heavily on everyone and in so doing, free time for more creative things.

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

The last 18 months have certainly seen the industry shed the purpose trap; liberated from the worthiness of much of that, I’d love to see our collective swagger return. My reflection coming back from maternity leave in September was just how lucky we are to do this every day; I’d love to see joy and creative excitement supplant the doom and gloom.

Creative Salon on Mother's 2024

Mother's 2024 ended with the agency being named Ad Week’s International Agency of the Year. It's an accolade that reflects the consistent world-class standards the agency sets - and attains - for itself.

And for an agency that doesn't particularly chase awards, Mother had a good year in Cannes too, taking home a gold award in the Films Lions category for ‘Trains, now on Uber’, which highlighted that Uber now also offers the option to purchase train tickets on its app.

But awards come only because the agency fights to make the best work, and creative excellence was everywhere again this year.

For M&S the agency created a brand take over at Oxford Circus Station to highlight the retailer's summer collection. The work saw bold, colourful bright pink vinyl-wrapped floors and blue sky-coloured ceilings in eye-catching posters to catch the attention of commuters.

Mother’s range of campaigns with for Swedish home furnishing brand IKEA included: ‘Pet Shopping Network’ to spotlight the product range for pets; a comical campaign used a series of short films to highlight just how good Ikea's mattresses are; and ‘Ways to Shop’ - a social campaign featuring the IKEA monster puppet showing the brand’s click and collect service.

CCO Felix Richter didn't let up for a moment, and snared some standout talent to help keep the momentum up. Derek Man Lui and Tomas Coleman, creative directors who first teamed up at W+K London before being hired by Richter when he was at Droga5 New York, joined the agency. Molly Wilkof joined from adam&eveDDB, where she was creative director for almost three years

The agency also hired Prachi Virani as head of content to lead the team that delivers engaging and effective content campaigns. Virani joined from Gravity Road, where she ran business development alongside leading high-profile clients, including Sainsbury’s and Pepsi.

Perhaps the agency's most intriguing and interesting hire was the appointment of Paul Hutchison - most recently CEO of Bohemia in Sydney - as head of media. In this role, he will shape and lead Mother’s approach to media and communications planning, with the objective of offering clients a uniquely differentiated media proposition in the UK market. The move reflects increased client demand for greater integration of creative and media thinking.

Mother is always a formidable opponent in any pitch, so no surprises that the agency had a good new business year too. New business coups included Duolingo, which appointed Mother to ideate and create content the UK.

Beyond the core UK agency, the Mother Family also had a busy year. Sister agency TheOr scored some creative triumphs, releasing its work with fast-fashion retailer ASOS, which saw the brand platform ‘Inspired By’ make its debut. It celebrated the places, moments and objects behind the latest fashion trends and brought them to life by telling the story behind the curation. 

The Mother Family also invested in a new agency at the beginning of the year called Run Deep, a specialist creative and strategy agency founded by M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment’s former managing directors Rich Barker and Jodie Fullagar. Run Deep dipped its toes into football with the launch of Tottenham Hotspur’s kits for the 2024/25 season. Its ‘Time to Rise’ campaign launched the Premier League team’s home kit, featuring Gavin and Stacey actor and lifelong Spurs fan Mathew Horne. 

Another investment came in the form of °Small World, a new company that builds curated super-teams from a roster of world-beating creative talent, effectively building clients their own creative agency for each and every brief. Inspired in part by Mother’s operating model, °Small World is the brainchild of founders Dan Salkey (formerly in-house at Adidas) and Harvey Austin (formerly client lead at Dark Horses).

Creative Salon says… We've almost certainly said it before, but we'll say it again: Mother is the agency that sets the standards that everyone else has to beat. From creative excellence to the cultural touchstone of 'making our children proud', to constant business innovation and a world-class talent bench, Mother continues to lead the way. Expect more in 2025.