Why acting fast and compassion put Mother London on track for a record year

When the pandemic hit, Mother London cancelled all of its profit targets and changed its priorities. Its objectives were to protect all of its staff’s jobs and health, to make the best work it possibly could for its clients, and to give back to the community.

The results of this were felt far and wide across the business, with Mother on track to see a 10% yearly increase in income in 2020, marking its highest income year on record.

Mother retained all of its clients during the first year of the pandemic and expanded scope for major ones, adding Ikea in France, the Netherlands and USA; launching KFC’s first global campaign; rebranding the Facebook app and launching Facebook campus; creating a new global brand platform for Stella Artois; and adding Uber Rides to Uber Eats.

The agency won 16 new clients in the meantime, giving it an 81.8% pitch success rate, which is four times the UK average.

By testing and improving working from home at the start of the pandemic, Mother was able to move to remote working completely before the first lockdown began in March. It shared its plan to protect every job in order to remove job insecurity, offered home-schooling help with a teacher for one-to-one tuition, closed its doors to new clients to protect staff from burnout, and provided over 70,000 meals to the local community.

In addition, Mother welcomed almost 100 new people on board, launched Mother Pictures as part of its plans for future growth in film and TV content, and set up new agency Oliver to help satisfy client demand for more independent creativity in advertising.

In its annual survey, 99% of staff felt Mother kept them safe, 97% felt jobs were safe, 100% thought Mother managed the pandemic well, 99% were happy (up from 78% in 2019) and 97% would recommend a career at Mother (up from 89% in 2019).

For all of this, Mother London is the winner of the 2021 Marketing Week Masters award for Agency of the Year.