FCB Is Adweek’s Global Agency of the Year

“Never finished” became an agency mantra prioritizing constant evolution for FCB and clients alike. “We bet that the work would get to a place that would make us stronger,” she says. “It’s not just award-winning work; it’s the kind of work clients value.”That mindset would prove especially valuable in 2020, a year in which all the norms of work and home life were upended. While nearly all agencies suffered financial losses this year, FCB grew 10% globally, according to the agency, while entering into new or expanding relationships with clients including BMW, Kimberly-Clark and Walmart.

Thanks to its growth amid industrywide disruption, strategic focus on collaboration across borders, ongoing commitments to inclusivity and its thriving healthcare marketing practice, FCB is Adweek’s 2020 Global Agency of the Year, marking the network’s first award in the category. FCB was last named U.S. Agency of the Year (as Foote, Cone and Belding) in 1989. It also highlights how the New York-based, IPG-owned agency network put its philosophy of adaptation into practice during a year when no one could afford to sit still.

“We functioned better in the virtual world than previously,” FCB global CSO Nigel Jones tells Adweek. “We created an agency that could thrive in this kind of world where collaboration is very important and egos destroy things.”