Our Favourite Agencies In Manchester
There’s a lot to love about Manchester.
(In fact, that’s why we decided to open our brand-new office there last year.)
It’s a city that’s absolutely brimming with unique culture, tourist destinations, and rich historical landmarks. It was also voted the 13th best city in the world by Time Out this year, beating heavy-hitters like Tokyo, New York, and Paris.
Manchester is also the perfect city for creative thinkers to thrive in.
The city boasts over 78,600 individuals working for 9,000 creative and tech companies. And the output of all that concentrated creative brainpower? An annual GVA of £3.8bn.
Creative industries are growing at lightning speed in Manchester, with twenty of Prolific North’s Top 50 Digital Agencies all being based in the city. When it comes to innovation and thought-leadership, many Manchester based agencies are leading the charge.
It’s a tough task to create a shortlist of the top Manchester agencies, but we’ve whittled down an extensive list to name a handful of our favourites.
Let’s take a look at some of the agencies producing stunning work, mind-blowing campaigns, and incredible creative concepts.
Ear To The Ground
Ear To The Ground is committed to creating ground-breaking cultural moments in the world of sport, gaming, and Esports.
The agency places a major emphasis on working closely with fans to stay on top of the latest trends, deliver industry-leading campaigns, and produce exciting creative executions.
Ear To The Ground achieves this through innovative Fan Intelligence - a unique network of 11,000 globally influential fans that provides clients with fresh insights and opinions on sport and gaming. Fan Intelligence allows the agency to create relevant and innovative campaigns that genuinely resonate with target audiences. The network has fuelled successful creative ideas for the likes of New Balance, PlayStation, and UEFA.
Ear To The Ground is also currently working on the ‘Future Of Fandom’ series - new content that will explore cultural phenomenon such as NFTs and the Metaverse, and explain how they will impact global fan experiences.
LOVE
Created in 2001, LOVE has been consistently delivering design-led solutions and innovative brand strategies for companies around the globe.
LOVE offers a wide range of specialist marketing services, including identity design, packaging design, brand communications and immersive experiences.
The agency has also earned plenty of recognition for its devotion to creative thinking and client success. The 60+ employee agency has won over 300 awards in the last two decades, from respected organisations such as Design Week, D&AD and The Drum.
LOVE has worked with a huge number of established global clients, including Diageo, Johnnie Walker, and Guinness. These collaborations have produced a range of creative activations, from collectable packaging designs to compelling content series.
Tangerine Communications
Tangerine Communications recently celebrated its 20th year in business - but that isn’t the only reason for celebration at the Manchester agency.
The business also announced a recent success of hitting over £5m in turnover, along with employing over 100 people. That’s more than double the amount employed just a year ago.
Tangerine Communications is gaining a huge amount of positive momentum, and that’s hardly surprising. The agency prides itself on delivering bold and brave ideas for clients, with a strong focus on nurturing a creative culture that produces impressive results.
The company brands itself as a ‘specialist creative communications agency’ and has worked on numerous innovative campaigns with established businesses such as Pizza Hut and Dunelm. The agency also recently launched a campaign for Specsavers that was shortlisted for a Cannes Lion - one of the most prestigious awards in the advertising world.
Embryo
Embryo is a full-service advertising agency, and when it comes to digital marketing, they do it all. The business offers specialist services in SEO, PPC, content marketing, paid social, website development, and more.
The agency fuses creative flair with data-driven insights to launch highly effective, impactful solutions for clients. Embryo’s work philosophy is anchored in a strong set of core values that encourage innovation, curiosity, and a focus on delivering superior ideas.
The company has collaborated with a number of brands from a wide range of different industries, consistently achieving high levels of performance and efficiency in every sector.
These campaigns blend technical prowess and outside-the-box thinking to produce multi-channel executions that are both supremely effective and undeniably creative.
Journey Further
Journey Further is a rapidly growing agency with a presence in London, Leeds, Manchester, and even New York (thanks to a recently opened office.)
The agency is expanding quickly, having increased its headcount from 80 to 155 in the last financial year. This growth is unsurprising when you consider the versatile range of marketing services that Journey Further offers, from PPC to programmatic ads and creative solutions.
With many clients now looking to balance innovative creative executions with data-fuelled campaign optimisations, agencies like Journey Further are perfectly positioned for massive success.
The business has launched campaigns with a vast selection of clients, from high-growth start-ups to household brand names.
Since the agency can provide specialist knowledge in almost any area of digital marketing, it can easily support brands of all shapes and sizes - something that’s proving to be crucial in generating significant business growth.
The Manchester creative industry is absolutely packed with talent, in every area from very specialist digital marketing to holistic brand strategy.
And the creative sector generally is showing no signs of slowing down.
The above agencies have achieved a huge amount of success and consistently delivered incredible work for clients - and this is just a sample of the talent that’s constantly emerging in Manchester.
We can’t wait to see how these agencies will continue to expand and innovate in the future.