Agencies, senior marketers and industry partners came together this week for the Oystercatchers Awards 2025 Presentation Evening, our annual celebration of the agencies shaping the marketing and communications industry.

The Oystercatchers Awards exist to recognise what sits behind long-term success. Partnership is at the heart of everything we do, but great partnerships don’t exist in isolation. They are built on strong cultures, clear leadership, inclusive thinking and teams equipped to grow and adapt. The Awards reflect all of this.

This year saw a record number of entries from agencies across creative, media, digital, PR and production, and from agencies of all sizes. The breadth and quality of submissions reinforced just how much focus the industry is placing on building better agency businesses, as well as delivering great work.

Judged by senior marketers

As always, the Awards were judged by more than 25 senior, brand-side marketers. Their role was to recognise agencies demonstrating excellence in partnership strength, commercial impact, culture, leadership, innovation and growth.

We are hugely grateful to this year’s judging panel, whose experience and perspective helped ensure the Awards remained grounded in what matters most to client-side marketers.

Oystercatchers Awards 2025 JudgesWhat the Awards celebrate

The 2025 categories were designed to give a balanced view of agency excellence. Refinements were made to ensure a fairer playing field between smaller and larger agencies, while continuing to celebrate the areas that matter most to strong partnerships and long-term performance.

Alongside agency awards, we continued to recognise individuals making a meaningful contribution to agency success and industry progress, as well as introducing Growth Team of the Year to shine a light on the teams driving momentum behind the scenes.

The winners

We are delighted to share the following agencies and individuals were recognised and Awarded with a shiny new trophy for their cabinets:

Best Agency Culture (50 staff or less)

Winner: Bicycle

Best Agency Culture (50+ staff)

Highly Commended: ITG

Winner: The Gate

Best New Partnership (1 Year)

Highly Commended: LeSHOP and OVO

Winner: VCCP and Wimbledon

Best Longstanding Partnership (3+ years)

Highly Commended: adam&eveDDB and Mars Petcare

Winner: AMV BBDO and Essity Libresse

Agency of the Year (50 staff or less)

Winner: Earnies

Agency of the Year (50 staff or more)

Highly Commended: Mother

Winner: VCCP

Inclusive Pioneers

Winner: VCCP

Clint Services Professional

Highly Commended: Alex Wood, Bicycle

Winner: Sangita Sivanesan, Generation Media

The Suki Thompson Award for Championing Change

Highly Commended: Adam Scantlebury, Mediahub

Highly Commended: Jonathan Brown, McCann London

NB: despite not awarding a winner in this category, the judges congratulated Adam and Jonathan for innovating and delivering exceptional results for their clients. 

Growth Team of the Year

Winner: Ledger Bennett

Best Agency Credentials

Winner: PMG

Grand Pearl Award

Winner: VCCP

Congratulations to all our Award recipients. The competition was fierce and the recognition richly deserved and the joy in receiving recognition can be seen in our gallery of winners:

Looking ahead

The 2025 Awards were a reminder that the strongest agencies are those investing in partnerships, people and capability for the long term. We’re proud to celebrate the agencies and individuals setting that standard for the industry.

A huge thank you to everyone who entered, judged and joined us on the night. We’re already looking forward to this year’s awards.