The Showcase 2024
The Gate: walking through bigger walls
The year set the stage for an even bigger 2025
2024 was a landmark year for The Gate, defined by bold creativity and a merger that redefined its capabilities.
The integration with MBAStack brought together brand-building expertise and cutting-edge customer experience solutions, creating a seamless approach that’s driving real results.
The agency’s campaigns made waves—Very’s 'Haus of Flamingo' evolved into a vibrant, multi-season platform, while The AA’s 'It’s OK, I’m With The AA' continued to grow with humour and heart. On top of that, The Gate celebrated major wins, including EFFIEs, Creative Circle awards and a some healthy new business.
We spoke with CEO Jamie Elliott to unpack the year’s achievements, challenges and what lies ahead for The Gate in 2025.
Jamie Elliott, CEO, on The Gate's 2024:
What have been the major highlights for your business in 2024?
1. Enhancing our track records in our 3 core practices: CX, BX and the joining up of the two
In BX we launched multiple new campaigns. After our debut Christmas ad introduced the ‘fl-amigos’ for Very last year, we extended the platform with new campaigns for toys, back to school and took the flamingo spirit into fl-amazing fashion campaigns for Summer and Autumn. We also reran last year’s Christmas ad with a few optimisations which took it from a 4.6 System1 rating to 5.4; ‘compound creativity’ in action. Our Giganaut set-off on its next mission encouraging consumers to leave behind obsolete broadband technology in favour of Gigaclear’s ultra-fast, full-fibre network. For The AA we launched the next phase of ‘It’s OK, I’m with The AA’ with humorous spots like ‘Shadow’ to support Accident Assist.
Very won an EFFIE and The AA was named Campaign of the Year at The Marketing Society Awards as well as winning Most Effective Use of Data & Insight, Brand Team of the Year and a Creative Circle gong.
In our CX practice we were thrilled to extend our The AA remit winning CRM and BTL pitches. We were also appointed by Informa to support across a range of exciting strategic assignments and won further projects with CFA. We also launched the next phase of our campaign with marketing luminaries for Royal Mail Marketreach and created our first work for AkzoNobel’s professional brands Sikkens, Trimetal and Dulux Trade.
At the CX-BX frontier, 3’s SMARTY Mobile was a shining example of integration, delivering significant growth for the brand. From format-busting special builds to drive fame and customer engagement that reduces churn, the work continues to gain recognition, including an EFFIE and a couple of DMA shortlists.
2. One gang
Our ‘Walk Through Walls’ culture unifies our different practices and teams, and we have refined our gang laws for this new era and introduced a new one ‘Nobody is Normal: ‘We celebrate our differences’ - drawing from the theme of our Cannes Lions-winning campaign for Childline.
3. Industry leaders
We continue to play an active role in the leadership of the industry. We are one of a few agencies in possession of the IPA’s Platinum Award for 10 consecutive years of CPD Gold Awards. Between the senior leadership gang we have: won Creative Leader of the Year, Agency of the Year and Best Agency to work for gongs and a place on the iList; we are active members of the IPA and APG councils; and, have presented on the main stages at SXSW.
What is your proudest achievement from the last 12 months?
A successful merger, our theme for the year was ‘unite & strengthen’.
The new The Gate has brought together existing brand capabilities with MBAstack’s customer experience capabilities to create a new model to serve the growing market for joined-up brand and customer experience creativity.
Specifically, the achievement is that this new look The Gate has built on the momentum both agencies had coming into the merger; we have kicked on again, proving that the new model is a winner.
Both agencies had their strongest years in 2023, the new The Gate has bucked the merger trend and gained rather than lost momentum, growing by a further 6 per cent and winning significant domestic and international pitches in both BX and CX and a slew of creative, effectiveness and agency leadership awards in doing so.
What are you most looking forward to next year?
Winning.
Having made our move to bring CX and BX together this year, we are well-placed to accelerate progress in our mission to become the UK’s No.1 creative communications company.
What do you feel have been the greatest industry challenges for agencies this year?
Focus.
This year brought waves of distraction—from AI hyperbole to political and economic uncertainty thanks to Trump, Putin and the Rachel Reeves budget.
Ignoring this noise and maintaining focus on what truly matters—delivering for our clients and fostering a winning culture for our staff—has been both the greatest challenge and the foundation of our progress.
Has the addition of any AI solution made the profound impact on your business that was expected?
It has made some things easier and it does infuse every aspect of what we do from speeding up translations to enhancing CX insights and super-charging the creative process. So, it has made a big impact, but not yet profound.
Creative Salon on The Gate's 2024
2024 saw The Gate take strides forward, both creatively and strategically, in a way that reflects its continued evolution.
At the heart of this change was the merger of The Gate and MBAstack. This set a clear direction: to integrate creativity, data, and technology in ways that empower brands to forge deeper connections with their customers. The new entity, known simply as The Gate, has attracted progressive marketers with a fully integrated approach to brand building, customer experience, and CRM.
At the helm, Jamie Elliott as CEO, Stephen Maher as chair, Kit Altin as CSO, and Lucas Peon as CCO brought a focused vision, while MDs James Middlehurst and Charlotte Wolfenden took charge of uniting brand and CX practices.
Altin revealed some interesting new research at Cannes showing the power of rituals - how they uncover truths behind human behaviour, and why brands need to understand the powerful opportunity behind becoming a more fixed part of a person’s life. As well as contributing to our collective understanding, the research should prove to be an interesting conversation starter with prospects.
To support this expansion, The Gate brought in new creative talent to keep its work fresh and bold. Former VMLY&R creatives Maisie Willis and Antonio Gizzonio joined as creative directors, while associate creative directors Chris Felstead and Andy Drugan, both previously freelancers at MSQ, came on board full time to drive the agency’s creative push across key accounts like Very.
The Gate’s work this year highlighted its knack for storytelling across a variety of sectors. Very’s 'Haus of Flamingo' made a comeback for autumn, featuring the retailer’s first fashion broadcast TV ad in seven years. Building on the ‘Let’s Make It Sparkle’ platform, the 'Operation Back to School' campaign simplified back-to-school shopping, while the 'Daydreaming' campaign helped kick-start early Christmas shopping, promoting Very’s toy range and flexible payment options.
The agency also evolved its work with The AA, expanding the much-loved 'It’s Ok, I’m with The AA' campaign to emphasize additional services like Accident Assist and member-only perks.
This approach earned The Gate recognition at the British Arrows with a Silver in Automotive, Bronze for Best Up to 30-Second Commercial, and a shortlist in the Integrated category. Additional accolades from The Marketing Society Awards included Best Brand Team, Effective Use of Insight and Data, and Campaign of the Year.
The Gate partnered with On Your Side to launch the 'A Better Fortune' campaign, commemorating the Lunar New Year and raising awareness of the alarming acts of hate against East and Southeast Asian communities in the UK.
Other campaign highlights include Smarty Mobile’s expanded ‘Less Malarkey, More Smarty’ platform, with creative print and OOH formats that emphasize Smarty's simplicity and flexibility.
For Gigaclear, The Gate continued its playful “Giganaut” campaign to encourage rural customers to make the switch from outdated copper to full fibre broadband.
New business wins capped a strong year for The Gate, with a competitive pitch win to oversee all CRM activities for The AA, adding to its role as the lead creative agency. These long-term client relationships underscore The Gate’s value in building trust and delivering meaningful results.
Creative Salon Says: In 2024, The Gate balanced bold strategic moves with a string of creative successes. The merger with MBAstack underscored its commitment to combining brand and CRM expertise, while its award-winning campaigns and fresh hires positioned it as a strong force in a rapidly evolving market.