According to Mia Hamm (American soccer sensation and founder of The Mia Hamm Foundation), “It is more difficult to stay on top than to get there.”

She’s absolutely right.

But from the far-reaching outposts of our mark-making* home offices (and with a little help from our friends), we’ve managed to achieve this trickiest of feats… in that we’ve only gone and retained our crown as the British Banking Awards Marketing Partner of the Year.

Double woop!

Dining at the top table

The BBAs, as they’re affectionately known, are the most prestigious awards of their kind in the sector – the ‘Oscars’ of the banking world, if you like. Which is why following up our 2020 win with a 2021 ‘title defence’ has made us just about burst with pride.

But crucially (and I’ll tell you why in a second), we’re every bit as flattered as we are proud. You see, unlike most awards that creative agencies enter (where a suitably flowery, self-written submission can give you an edge), the BBAs are 100% voted for by banking customers, or in our case, our lovely clients.

A ‘thanks’ to those who mean the most

To be recognised by our peers is as good as it gets for us at mark-making*. We treat our clients like the friends they’ve become, which means we work doubly hard to help them be everything they can be. And when they’re kind enough to acknowledge our efforts and skills, it all feels worthwhile – like we’re adding the value we aspire to add.

So a massive, massive thanks to our amazing cast list of clients. In every sense, our BBA Marketing Partner of the Year double has been all about you.

Hitting the heights in our heartland

The fact that this sustained spell of success has stemmed from work we’ve done within our Financial Services heartland, tells us that we must be doing something right – especially with agency competition as fierce as it’s ever been out there. 

And we genuinely believe that we are doing something right. Not every single time on every single project, of course (never trust an agency that says any different). But from Nationwide to Pepper Money; Recognise to Aldermore and Gatehouse, we’ve got a long list of clients who are happy to talk about how pleased they are to work alongside us.

There’s no substitute for years of experience and expertise – and we pride ourselves on both of these things. But what we’re most proud of is our ability to see the bigger picture and move on.

Movin’ on up

The great Sir Alex Ferguson used to allow his all-conquering Manchester United players 20 minutes to celebrate a trophy, before consigning the achievement to the past and focusing on the next opportunity. This is exactly what we do at mark-making*.

We may have amassed a more-than-respectable number of ‘trophies’ in recent times, but our mantra remains that ‘you’re only as good as your last game’.

So we’ll briefly enjoy our latest moment in the spotlight and be rightly proud of our landmark achievement, but tomorrow we’ll be focusing on what lies ahead.

We know that if we continue to give it our all, happy clients and more awards will follow. So that’s what we’ll be doing. And it’s exactly what we’d do for you, too.