Soap listed as the top digital agency
Soap is Australasia’s best digital agency according to a new ranking published on online advertising creativity site Bannerblog which differs wildly from a similar exercise carried out by Forrester Research last year.
The assessment includes awards won, the agency’s management of its own reputation and the quality of its work.
Three of the top five digital agencies are NZ based. The top five:
- Soap AU – 79%
- Resn NZ – 76%
- AIM Proximity NZ – 74%
- Tribal DDB NZ – 72%
- Tequila AU – 71%
More than 50 agencies were covered. The full results can be seen on Bannerblog. The survey was carried out in association with Campaign Brief.
Although Bannerblog is partly the work of Soap’s Ashley Ringrose, he was not on the panel of eight creatives who gave marks to the agencies.
The list is almost a direct contradiction of an assessment of Australia’s digital agencies carried out by Forrester Research in July last year. Using a different methodology, that survey listed reported that “Amnesia Razorfish, HotHouse, Hyro, and the White Agency lead the pack”.
Amnesia and The White Agency asked not to be included in the Bannerblog survey, while Hyro came last in the ranking with 21% and HotHouse was second from bottom with 23%.
The worst ranking full service agencies were The Furnace and MercerBell.
The other agencies that declined to be rated were Host, Webqem and Deepend.
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I like the part where “the quality of its work” is third in the list and “campaign effectiveness” is nowhere to be seen. Ah well, at least “awards won” and “the agency’s management of its own reputation” (really?) are in there.
Top quality stuff, Bannerblog.
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Sounds about right. Hyros work has been dropping of late, and I haven’t seen anything good from hothouse lately. Surprised at the number of highly ranked NZ creatives. Would like to see the self-excluded agencies add themselves back in next time..
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The fact that Bannerblog decides the best digital agency based purely on creative says it all. Note also that it was only judged by creatives.
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Hi accountant – I’m not sure they would claim it as any more than “best for creative”. Forgive me if that’s not clear from the headline.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
The only telling thing is the quality of Forrester’s reporting. Seriously, when was the last time you heard anything good come out of their top listed agencies? It was ridiculous.
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I’ll write a longer response when I get a chance but I just wanted to flag quickly that Bannerblog’s work and Forrester’s work do not contradict each other as they don’t attempt to do the same thing. More to come.
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OK, I haven’t spoken to the Bannerblog team about their method or their intentions, so if I’ve misunderstood anything, please jump in and correct me.
That said, here are just two of the reasons why it makes no sense to compare the two activities:
# Forrester quite deliberately looked at 6 digital agencies in great detail. We never attempted to or pretended to map the digital agency market as a whole. The quote about 4 “leading the pack” is accurate, but out of context. It refers to the 4 agencies that lead the studied pack of 6.
# Meanwhile, Bannerblog as far as I can tell aimed to chart the entire digital agency landscape, or at least a large part of it. This is a worthwhile but completely different endeavour.
# Forrester spoke to the clients of each agency about their experience of working with the agency and the ROI achieved. We examined business processes and technical competencies and contract conditions and pricing and so on and so forth. Yes, we also gave our opinion of each agency’s creative process — but we did not attach a number of creative in our final evaluation as we focused on measurable differences between agencies.
# Bannerblog not only evaluated creative but gave it a weighting of 85%.
These are two interesting studies with completely different outlooks. They are so different that it makes no sense to say they contradict each other. It would make much more sense to say that if you happen to be considering any of the six agencies that Forrester studied, then the two reports complement each other.
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“The fact that Bannerblog decides the best digital agency based purely on creative says it all”
– bannerblog didn’t decide anything. the judging panel did
– actually 85% on creative – not purely
“Note also that it was only judged by creatives”
– correct and it never said anything other wises. creative does tend to make up a big percentage of what our/these agencies do. [ but not all parts ]
are you sure your an accountant? your numbers seem to be way off 🙂
looking forward to the other 5 agencies taking part
[and any new or additional ones as well]
the addition of technical next time will be very interesting. will be great to see if the order moves around much
there’s quiet a lot of smaller agency’s performing extremely well. great to see
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@ukalipt you can’t spell
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Headline should read: “Shock result, Soap listed as top digital agency on a blog run by Soap’s owners”
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quite rite @____________
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Don’t believe everything you read.
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But maybe it would be more objective if @ukalipt disclosed that they do in fact work at Soap next time they post an opinion?
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does it really matter.
my name is matthew willis and i work at soap. i have worked at amnesia as well. i do work in conjunction with hyro regularly and have many friends who work in a lot of the agency’s on the list.
i didn’t post here as anonymous or as i don’t work at soap.
i always post on every forum i ever use as well as my twitter, flickr, xbox gamer tag, everything as ukalipt and will continue to do so
ps. i am a shocking speller
anything else??
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Heading is slightly misleading – Perhaps a more balanced report next time would be better to claim such a headline heading. In any case contrats to the creatives in the top 5 for their…creative 😉
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congrats even 🙂
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It’s kind of like when Handy smurf won the ‘2 inches of blue thunder’ award the year that Papa smurf, Smurfette, Heafty and Brainy smurf decided not to enter. We are glad you won mate … but are we really there yet?
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Congrats Soap.
From a clients perspective, you guys are fantastic and deserve all the accolade.
Looking forward to working with you soon.
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I cannot comment on Soap being on the top of the list, however, I have seen their work first hand and it’s good. No question.
We’ve pitched against them a number of times, sometimes won, sometimes lost.
However, I am dubious about some of the other agencies on the list…
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Have at it Matt, err, ukalipt.
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Nice one Brad, Ash etc.
And typically the anonymous nastiness begin. Sorry Tim but Mumbrella has become the industry equivalent of drink spiking.
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Well done Soap! Stellar effort.
I have to say that I was surprised to see that Resn came in second though. Based on what I know of Resn, I would have expected them to top the list with flying colours.
Could someone from Bannerblog explain how it is that Soap topped the list?
Did it come down to number of staff that Soap have over Resn?
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If AIMIA Award finalists are anything to go by, Soap are deservedly ‘hotter’ creatively than Resn right now. Soap = 10 finalists, while Resn = 3 (see https://mumbrella.com.au/aimia-awards-2010-finalists-unveiled-16089 )
Not that AIMIA Awards are everything, but a pretty impartial and fair judging process overall.
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I think it’s a good start. The methodology and participation will improve over time. Soap is out in front and I’m sure with the inclusion of a few others like Deepend, the Whites and Amnesia (as well as others), it will re-shape the map next time.
It would be great if this has the effect of stirring everyone up to try harder this year – to do better, more creative and more effective work.
To the anonymous whingers and moaners – please stop it, you’re hurting everyone. How about you just aim to do better than Soap this year.
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Can somebody pass the soap?
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lol at The Furnace coming in as one of the worst ranking full service agencies. Not surprising.
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Like what Shaun has said, this should simply be retitled to “Top Digital Creative Agency”.
Agencies do not just deliver creative interactive solutions but business solutions, some of which just happen to be driven around advertising and/or creativity.
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