VCCP: Relentlessly Raising The Bar

VCCP is an agency that proves time and time again it's the real deal. It's rewriting the map of the industry, with win after win, award after award, hire after hire. 

2025 has seen it continue to stamp its authority and stay ahead of the game; the rebrand of its Stoke Academy to The Challenger Academy; the launch of the Challenger Series vodcast led by its co-founder and chairman Charles Vallance; its seven wins at Cannes Lions, making it the most awarded independent UK agency of 2025. 

Its influence as an agency continues on the foundations laid by 2024: a hot streak that proves increasingly difficult to ignore. Its winning streak - including Barclays, British Gas - as well as retaining TfL shows the impact of longstanding chief growth officer and CEO EMEA Stephanie Brimacombe, who was elevated to CEO of VCCP Roar (its PR division) at the end of the year.

And adding to the flames is a range of new hires across the business; Claire Strickett joined as group planning director for Primark Global; Ben Phillips joined as group planning director for Cadbury Global; its creative department expanded with Charli Camber and Laura Saraiva joining as associate creative directors from VML, Lance Boreham and Tom Dyson joining as a senior creative team from isobel, and Jack Snell and Joe Lovett also joining as a senior creative team from BMB; Yan Elliot joined as creative director from Weber Shandwick UK; and VCCP Media appointed Tom Wigley as its new director of digital from EssenceMediacom UK. 

The movement didn’t stop there, as the year also saw Chris Birch and Jonny Parker promoted to chief creative officers; Ellie Gauci was promoted to its head of strategy, loyalty and CRM; and Dave Masterman was promoted to ECD. 

The cherry on the top of the cake was its final goodbye to its Victoria office after 23 years in the space. 2026 will see VCCP gracing a new home in Fitzrovia, hoping to make both new memories and continue as a creative hub of excellence. 

Creative Salon spoke with its CSO Michael Lee about VCCP London's 2025.

Michael Lee, chief strategy officer, on VCCP's 2025

What three words would you use to describe 2025?

Tricksy, stimulating, moving (office)

Talk us through some of your agency’s highlights this year?

We’ve had a good, growing year at a difficult time for a lot of the industry, so we’re proud of where we are looking back at the last 11 months. 

We won big time at Cannes for the first time for our UK office, and we were crowned International agency of the year by the Kinsale Shark awards. In fact, it has been our biggest year of creative and effectiveness award wins ever (a 74 per cent increase YoY if you get excited by this type of data!)

Beyond the work, we have moved office for the first time in the agency’s history which is quite a major culture shift on many levels and fostering a new era of collaboration. 

And finally, we’ve rapidly developed a really good MarTech layer that is benefiting the whole VCCP group. 

What one thing are you proudest of this year?

We won some great new clients, representing some of the most iconic brands in our lives (British Gas, Barclays) whilst making some of our finest work for some of our oldest clients such as Virgin Media O2, easyJet and Cadbury.

And what’s been your biggest challenge?

It’s every agency’s challenge: the Goldilocks equation. Getting the right balance between enthusiastically embracing the significant benefits of AI to our industry, whilst committing to our original mission when we set up our AI creative agency faith, ”to use AI as an accelerator of human creativity and imagination”. Our work for O2 on Daisy Vs Scammers (our AI scambaiting granny) is just one of the many examples of how we’ve stayed true to that mission this year.

What are you most looking forward to in 2026?

We have some amazing creative work launching early next year for Allwyn Global and our new campaign for Barclays is just getting going. 

The mind-boggling diversity of our creative output is really starting to get recognition. Across all parts of VCCP, from influencer to UX/UI, branded diffusion models to really original CRM-led ideas, the standard and coherence of our work is hitting new heights. 

At the same time, I think it will be a big year for brands delivering brilliant real world and real-time experience. In an increasingly synthetic world, the uniqueness of the shared, communal experiences that live sport and entertainment can give people will be more valued than ever. 

And what one change would you most like to see in our industry next year?

We’ve been running The Challenger Academy, our social inclusion initiative that we started in Stoke back in 2021, for four years now. In that time we’ve unearthed so many talented young people and contributed over £4.4m to the local economy but in the grand scheme of things, the impact we can have in isolation is tiny. I still think there is so much more we can be doing to make it easier for raw creative talent from outside the big cities to discover and access our industry. Luckily, we’re now starting to partner with other businesses, ones we compete with directly, and we’re making it work despite the fact we’re supposed sworn enemies. I hope this is the year when more competitors realise it’s possible (and highly rewarding) to be both. 

Creative Salon on VCCP's 2025

This year saw VCCP once again showcasing the power behind its creativity - proven across a range of clients from all sectors from food and drink to sport to banking. 

Its new business wins saw it claim the accounts for Barclays, British Gas and the Department for Education - a showstopping performance.

Its work with Transport for London (TfL) - which it also retained - began with a celebration of its 25th anniversary which saw both OOH posters highlighting iconic moments in London’s history alongside a redesigned roundel on its logo. 

And this continued later into the year with its ‘Act Like a Friend’ campaign, looking to empower passengers on how to safely intervene when they witness hate crime, sexual harassment or offences on public transport. 

2025 also marked VCCP's debut year working with The All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon, on its campaign, 'There is only one Wimbledon' - tasked with showcasing the special magic of The Championships.

Its work with long-standing client Cadbury saw the return of the brand’s Bournville dark chocolate, melting Dairy Milk taking over London’s iconic Piccadilly Lights, and even turning its much-loved Heroes chocolates into some of the UK’s most iconic heroes of its own.

Another of its long-standing clients, Virgin Media O2 revealed its new brand platform 'Essential for Living', which continued across the year with ways of staying connected with the fourth chapter of its ‘To Better and Beyond’ campaign with ‘Trunk Trucker’ (an elephant in a truck), and celebrating both the sporting successes of England’s Lionesses and Red Roses.

Its work for Co-op Funeralcare, ‘1 Brilliant Life’ showcased the brand’s ability to honour the lives of loved ones when planning a funeral.

And its work for Walkers particularly saw a range of eye-catching work from showcasing new flavours to April Fools teases to the return of the much-loved Worcester Sauce variant.

Creative Salon says... VCCP has shown the industry its firepower for another consecutive year; being the most awarded independent UK agency at Cannes, while its continued growth both in talent and new business shows what a powerhouse the agency has become. 

Stepping into 2026 with refreshed internal energy and a new office space, few would bet against this momentum stopping any time soon.