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The Showcase 2024


St Luke’s: Driving Impact and Championing Talent in 2024

The agency doubled down on talent development

By Creative Salon

For St Luke's 2024 was about prioritising talent and DE&I when others were stepping back and also delivering campaigns that truly connected with people.

With CEO Neil Henderson at the helm, the St Luke's crew tackled the year head-on, showcasing their creativity and commitment to innovation.

We caught up with Henderson to chat about the agency’s journey over the past year.

Neil Henderson, CEO of St Luke's, on the agency's 2024:

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

2024 saw us shortlisted for both Campaign and Oystercatcher’s Agency of the Year and awarded Oystercatcher’s Best Agency Culture. We were also named a Campaign Best Place to Work for the seventh year in a row!

It has been a year of extremes and uncertainty across the board, so when faced with such turmoil, we did what we do best - embraced it with open arms and set ourselves the challenge to deliver more in every aspect of our business.

We fought hard for new business, ending 2023 winning Wickes and Checkatrade. This momentum continued in 2024, with wins from founder-led businesses, including Hilltop Honey, writers academy The Novelry, and the meat alternative THIS.co.

We got more creative recognition for Butterkist and Ocado from FAB, Creative Circle, and Campaign Big. And our work for Holocaust Memorial Day, Heathrow and Old Mout Cider received significant acclaim.

We doubled down on demonstrating effectiveness. Our SWR campaign reached new heights with a benchmark-busting ROI of £6.50 for every £1 invested in the advertising. Tyrrells claimed definitive victory over long-standing rival Kettle, chalking up 40 per cent value growth since the campaign started. Ocado saw recognition in the Marketing Week Awards for delivering double-digit growth in acquisition, the CEO publicly calling out the role advertising played in its growth story. It is now the fastest-growing supermarket in the UK.

We launched some incredible new brand platforms and campaigns for our wonderful clients, including Hilltop Honey, Old Mout, and South Western Railway and early 2025 will see new ones for Wickes, This.co and Heathrow and we couldn't be more excited.

We’ve delivered more innovation for our clients, by launching our branded content offering, spearheaded by TV veteran Andrew Hill. Once the brains behind the Apprentice, he is now working on a number of projects with St Luke’s clients, which will turbocharge our production division, Apostle Studios.

Andrew drew on his expertise when he was on stage at SXSW talking about the future of formats, just one of our many speaker slots, awards judging and thought-leadership initiatives throughout the year, which also included Effies, Cannes, the inaugural Campaign Live and Campaign Big.

When other agencies were beginning to pull back on DE&I investment, we ran another successful Flying Start programme, the industry’s only positive action training program. This year, the programme grew by 50 per cent.

Initiatives to enhance culture came thick and fast, with everyone embracing the ‘Every Voice Counts’ spirit of the agency. The ‘Make Yourself More Interesting’ fund spawned rug makers, fly fishers and more. From ‘End of the Month Munches’ to St Luke’s Day VR safaris, our team spirit thrived.

And we looked after our people. We addressed the cost of living by raising our minimum salary to £30k, and awarded £500pm to help with childcare costs, we were awarded ‘All In Champions’ status, the IPA People First award and CPD Platinum for the 4th year running.

What is your proudest achievement from the last 12 months?

Without a doubt, it is has to be Flying Start.

Kho-Kho is one of India’s oldest and most popular sports and this year it became part of life at St Luke’s thanks to Flying Start. In July 2023 we launched the industry’s only positive action training scheme exclusively for under-represented racial groups - a fully paid 8-week course covering all aspects of a real client brief/agency life: strategy, creative, account management and production.

In 2024, the initiative grew with three new trainees, who have been invited to apply to our internship programme with the aim that they will eventually become full-time employees, joining our two 2023 Flying Starters who are now permanent employees

The initiative heralded a transformation of the agency’s approach to the diversity challenge and not only did our Flying Starters discover a passion for a career in advertising career, but they taught us new insights about different cultures including the incredibly competitive game, Kho-Kho.

We chose ‘positive action’ as it was a radical way to address much needed change. Although the ‘All In’ survey suggests the make-up of agencies has the same representation as the UK, the figures hide a difficult truth; “Black (30 per cent) non-white (26 per cent) and Muslims (28 per cent) are more likely to leave their company in the next 12 months than the average (21 per cent)”.

‘Positive action’ meant we accessed a pool of candidates who wouldn’t normally find a way into the industry and by focusing on training we could improve their understanding of the industry. All the while learning how we as an agency can foster and support more diverse talent, and focus on retention.

What are you most looking forward to next year?

There is so much to look forward to - no elections for starters. We can be ever optimistic that this will bring a bit of much needed stability to the UK market and restore much needed consumer confidence.

In 2024, we relaunched Apostle Studios, our in-house multi-media production capability, a team of creative collaborators with a ‘let’s do this’ attitude. Whether it’s low-cost social content deployed at speed, a reactive stunt, or an interactive build, we have built a proposition to make sure our clients can deliver rich content for its consumers at any touchpoint.

For our clients, it has meant being able to implement incredible work at pace, from reactive stunts around Partygate and ‘Wagatha Christie’ for Butterkist, to highly crafted outdoor campaigns for Heathrow Airport, as well as rich BAU content for the likes of Ocado, Old Mout Cider and Abbott Lyon.

We are also incredibly excited to see the fruits of our branded content division taking shape. We are in talks with four clients currently to make programming - we think it might be a bit of game-changer!

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

Whatever one’s feelings about future prospects for the industry and the economy more broadly, at least we have more certainty going into 2025. This has been sorely lacking for much of 2024. And that’s led to marketing decisions being protracted, deferred, or put off altogether.

That a handful of key retailers this Christmas have chosen to rerun assets from the previous year is symptomatic of a general drop in production, which has been felt by production companies across the board.

New business has been sluggish for much of 2024, with even relatively modest opportunities fiercely contested.

Having said that, the last quarter of 2024 has felt like a definite gear shift, with new business opportunities and marketing plans looking far less anaemic than they have been for some time.

For sure, there will be more headwinds to face into, with a potential global tariff war, tax rises for employers, and energy costs creeping back up, but it definitely feels like there’s more momentum going into next year. And while those green shoots may not yet become mighty oaks, there’s a good chance they’ll at least be healthy-looking shrubs.

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

Like many transformative technologies, the tendency is to over-estimate the impact in the short term, and under-estimate it in the long term. For pretty much every task we do in the agency, we’ve had a sales call from an AI company promising that their tool can do it better, faster, cheaper.

Sure enough, AI does have a role to play in pretty much every side of the business - for example we’re using it to record meetings, conduct research, analyse, develop strategies, in creative development and early stage concepting. But what we’re finding is that most of it makes agency work more efficient. We can cover more ground, quicker, with the same resource.

That’s important, but it isn’t a game-changer. Where we’re most excited is where we see the opportunity for AI to make us more effective. Not to do things quicker and cheaper, but to do things we couldn’t have done before. So far we’ve discovered two genuinely transformative uses. The first is creative testing at scale, to apply the same sort of rigour that previously was reserved for the big creative assets like TV, to whole full-funnel campaigns. The second is bringing the consumer’s voice into the room in many more stages of strategy development, through AI consumer personas. Doubtless, as the tech matures, we’ll discover more.

Creative Salon on St Luke's 2024

2024 marked another thrilling chapter for St Luke's, characterised by bold initiatives, strategic wins and a proactive approach to tackling the talent crisis in the advertising industry.

Kicking off the year, CEO Neil Henderson and the agency made a significant move by raising entry-level salaries across the agency to £30,000 per annum, surpassing the London Living Wage. This increase, effective immediately, reflected St Luke's commitment to attracting and retaining talent in a sector grappling with rising living costs. The agency had been a proud signatory of the Living Wage Foundation for years, and this decision underscored its dedication to supporting entry-level talent in advertising.

On the people front, St Luke’s welcomed Flora Proudlock from The&Partnership as its new strategy director, reporting to chief strategy officer Dan Hulse. This hire demonstrated the agency’s commitment to bolstering its strategic capabilities. Additionally, Andrew Hill, a seasoned producer known for his work on The Apprentice US and a two-time Cannes Gold Lion winner, returned to St Luke's to head up branded content at Apostle Studios. He drives the mission to deliver compelling, culturally relevant content alongside Chloe London, head of moving image.

St Luke's enjoyed a winning streak, securing the creative account for This, a brand making waves in the plant-based meat alternative space. The agency produced exciting creative work across TV, out-of-home, and social media as it embarked on this new partnership. It also won the creative account for Checkatrade.

St Luke's crafted impactful campaigns throughout the year. The Ocado 'Price Promise' campaign kicked off the year, building on the original concept from May 2023 to reinforce the online retailer’s value proposition. However, St Luke’s made the strategic decision not to repitch for the Ocado Retail creative account, which was put up for review in August.

St Luke’s also played a significant role in honoring victims of the Holocaust, leading an initiative for Holocaust Memorial Day that saw six million candles lighting up outdoor sites across the UK.

In a clever twist, the agency collaborated with Wickes for a playful stunt welcoming Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, highlighting its kitchen expertise in the new political landscape. St Luke's also introduced a rewards programme for South Western Railway, featuring quirky 'Bird Fluencers' like Sandy C. Gull and Wesley Peck to entice both business and leisure travelers.

St Luke's creativity was further demonstrated with the 'Abuse Stays With Our Staff' campaign for South Western Railway, which addressed the impact of hurtful words on frontline workers. Additionally, the whimsical Old Mout Cider's 'Side by Cider' campaign took audiences on a journey through Moutpia with a charming kiwi bird, while the thought-provoking 'Nature's Plea' campaign raised awareness of ecocide as a crime under the ICC.

Another notable campaign included the Hilltop initiative, showcasing a playful twist on honey consumption while emphasising quality and sustainability. And even CEO Henderson got in on the fun.

Creative Salon Says: Looking back on 2024, it's clear that St Luke's navigated the year with resilience and plenty of creativity. Trying to do the right thing can be a risky business. But to get it right and really make a difference needs more than applause. The agency this year ran another successful Flying Start programme, the industry’s only positive action training programme - an initiative that grew by 50 per cent. And it addressed the cost of living by raising its minimum salary to £30k, and awarded £500pm to help with childcare costs. Henderson and his top team, including joint CCOs Al Young and Richard Denney, CSO Dan Hulse, MD Ed Palmer, and CMO Jess Gibb, should feel proud of the strides they made in a year of extremes and uncertainty. It's set itself strong on the way to 2025.

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