WE ARE Pi is Adage Small Agency of the Year
01-08-2019 (12:41) - Bureaus
Het Amsterdamse agency WE ARE Pi is door Adage in de jaarlijkse competitie aangewezen als International Small Agency of the Year. Het jury-oordeel volgens Adage:
'The Small Agency of the Year award comes after a year in which the thirty five person team of self proclaimed ‘Pirates’ has demonstrated time and again the power of innovation and scale that an independent agency can deliver through resourcefulness, passion and vision. The story of WE ARE Pi is an optimistic modern alternative to news stories of behemoth mergers and the death of traditional agencies.
Eight years ago four intrepid pirates split off from the Wieden + Kennedy mothership to form their own indie agency in Amsterdam. Their goal was to preserve the independent spirit, while bringing the real diversity and daring of Amsterdam for a new age.
Over the last eight years as many traditional agencies have struggled to navigate big changes in the media and advertising landscape, WE ARE Pi’s small band of pirates has grown eightfold. In the last 12 months they added an exciting roster of new clients including the world’s biggest sports retailer InterSport as well as Urbanears, WeTransfer, Nike, Desigual and Netflix.
Work featuring in CNN news and written about in Vogue were our fav 2018 accolades. Industry peer reviews also reinforced WE ARE Pi’s growing presence in the ad world, with Small Agency of The Year Award from Creative Pool, Grand Prix and Game-Changer Awards from Campaign and Best Social from Webby Awards.
Founded with Jamaican, British and Japanese roots the agency has expanded into a crew that hosts fifteen different languages. While the marketing world has seen its diversity problem turn into a series of PR crises, WE ARE Pi has been having fun grappling with everything from West Indian immigration to pan-asian hip-hop and Indian weddings like the cultural natives they are.
“We’ve created a Studios offering and extended into the entertainment business. We’ve found ourselves mastering world famous events like hot air balloon music festivals and zero gravity plane drops. We’ve helped clients create new product franchises and even created a fair bit of advertising along the way.', zegt Alex Bennett Grant, co-founder and CEO of WE ARE Pi, in een reactie.
healthy future
Grant vervolgt: 'At Pi we believe that any agency that is going to have a healthy future needs to look beyond advertising alone. We’ve worked hard to create a business that, while still committed to creating great advertising, has a bigger view of its future. One of our biggest successes has been diversifying into the entertainment space with the creation of Pi Studios. We’ve made a number of hires of people with pure entertainment backgrounds.'
