MullenLowe: In In a Year of Change The Work Continues to Be Meaningful

MullenLowe UK and The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) partnered with Cannes Lions this year to introduce a new award celebrating the use of alternative text. Alt text involves the use of online image descriptions to enable people with impaired sight to visualise pictures. The Craft subcategory, which will come into use next year, will run across the Audio and Radio, Film, Outdoor and Print and Publishing Lions. A huge and very meaningful initiative by the agency to showcase how creativity has the power to make a massive difference to blind and partially sighted people.

Under the outgoing CEO Claire Hollands’ leadership, MullenLowe not only delivered standout work but also championed campaigns with real social impact. This year also included campaigns that not only resonated with audiences but also sparked cultural conversations for brands such Lynx, Knorr and Carers UK.

With new leadership in place—including Ben Shaw as the agency's chief strategy officer and Katie McCambley as managing director—the agency strengthened its UK team.

As Hollands prepares to step down and take the helm at Saatchi&Saatchi, Creative Salon catches up with her to reflect on MullenLowe's biggest moments of 2024 and what lies ahead for the agency.

Claire Hollands, CEO of Mullen Lowe on the agency's 2024

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

Top 3.

1. Our new brand social positioning has brought vision and clarity to everything we do. Wrapped up in our Cannes Lions winning branding MullenLowe has finished the year a very different Agency to how it started.

2. We’ve hired and promoted amazing talent including Ben Shaw to CSO, Katie McCambley to Managing Director and seen Loren and Bron win Campaign’s Creative Team of the year.

3. We have raised the bar this year on all our creative work and made cultural waves. This year, our brands have shown up at the BAFTAS, The BBC News, Fortnight, Minecraft, Twitch, Ebay and the Turner Contemporary Art Gallery to name a few. We’ve seen Freeman’s x Sophie Ellis Bextor’s top the music charts at Number 5 and launched a new category at Cannes and a UN day.

What is your proudest achievement from the last 12 months?

Creating work that really makes a difference in people’s lives - launching our Carers UK working after winning the Creative Shoot Out and our RNIB Alt text campaign that became history-making by introducing a whole new category into Cannes

What are you most looking forward to next year?

We have exciting new business wins to announce and a pipeline of creative work we’re buzzing about.

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

New Business has been tough. Slow start to the year, combined with lots of processes/decisions being delayed, has put pressure on the year. We’ve had to hustle hard but watch this space!

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

Not yet, but we’re starting to see shoots of change. Like most Agencies we’ve embedded AI into our day to day working from briefs to production. Tools are one thing but getting the whole Agency experimenting with AI has been the real task. Through a combination of initiatives and the launch of our own AI platform OctopAI we’ve ending 2024 match fit.

Creative Salon on Mullen Lowe's 2024

As the outgoing CEO Hollands is set to leave the agency after three years, during which she oversaw the integration of MullenLowe London, MullenLowe Profero and MullenLowe Salt, we take a look at all the noteworthy moments under her helm.

In January this year the agency announced the appointment of Ben Shaw, who had spent over a decade at BBH in senior strategy roles, as its new chief strategy officer. Shaw, who has both agency- and client-side experience, joined the agency from workplace wellbeing platform Unmind, where he was vice-president of marketing. A month later, in February this year, the agency promoted its head of client services Katie McCambley to managing director. Additionally, in March, MullenLowe welcomed Maxene Edghill as the director of operations, a newly created position designed to bridge the strategy, creative, design, customer experience (CX), and production departments. Edghill, who joined from VML, drives operational improvements and enhance the agency's in-house creative and production capabilities.

MullenLowe's creative prowess has been recognised with several accolades this year. The agency’s collaboration with challenger brand Cleanipedia won an Outdoor Bronze Lion for "The Unmentionables," and it's partnership with Persil's 'Dirt Is Good' won two Golds at the Creative Circle Awards.

In February, the agency launched a playful social-first campaign for Lynx titled #GetPearedUp, aimed at encouraging men to foster closer connections.

In partnership with Knorr, the agency tackled the gaming industry's vegetable representation by presenting a campaign to raise awareness among top gaming publishers about the underrepresentation of vegetables in their games. This initiative reflects MullenLowe's commitment to meaningful work.

MullenLowe also launched Princesses on Periods, a content platform for Bayer Consumer Health Brand, Dorival, in Central America. The UK team led the strategy, creativity, and production oversight, addressing common questions about periods with animated princesses providing valuable insights.

MullenLowe collaborated with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) to create a another meaningful campaign - this time underscoring the importance of Alt Text in visual content. The partnership included an initiative to celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day, enhancing access to art and information for those with visual impairments.

This collaboration has also led to the introduction of a new Cannes Lions category dedicated to recognising the best use of Alt Text in advertising, a crucial step towards improving accessibility in the industry.

MullenLowe and Carers UK joined forces to redefine how unpaid care is perceived and encourage individuals to identify as caregivers earlier. MullenLowe was crowned winner of The Creative Shootout 2024 in January, and since then, a creative team from the agency has been working closely with Carers UK, the Creative Shootout Charity of the Year 2024, to develop the 'This Counts As Care' campaign.

As the festive season approaches, Freemans launched one of the year's first Christmas ads, featuring singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor and a stylish "Style Squad" delivering gifts on a snowy 'Sleigh Street.' This campaign aims to position Freemans as the go-to destination for curated and thoughtful holiday gifts ahead of the Christmas rush.

Creative Salon Says: MullenLowe has showcased remarkable adaptability and creativity in 2024, successfully navigating new challenges and opportunities. Now under the helm of chairman Tom Knox, CCO Nicky Bullard and CSO Ben Shaw, , CCO - it remains a bench of brilliant and charismatic people with a terrific pedigree and a lot of goodwill behind them. In the business of advertising, it's only talent that counts.