AMV BBDO’s Mission to Craft Big Ideas That Real People Love

BBDO’s new ‘Do Big Things’ positioning is as big in nature as it is in name – the first time the agency network has rebranded itself since 1996. 

Brought about by the revitalised global leadership team in chief executive officer Nancy Reyes and chief creative officer Chris Beresford-Hill, the positioning is a prompt for all of BBDO’s agencies to reassess what they do biggest and best.

In the UK, AMV Group is taking the chance to reconsider its own bigness. CEO Xavier Rees appreciates that Nancy and Chris are “prepared for the seismic shifts reshaping the global media landscape and the challenges businesses face at unprecedented speed and scale,” and he’s excited to underline the value of that scale for the agency group he runs. “To survive and thrive, companies need big ambitions and bold creative solutions, and there’s no better agency than BBDO to do this. ‘Do Big Things’ is also a fight against little thinking, little steps and little risk, in an era where ‘big’ is often seen as bad.”

 

What unites all of BBDO’s agencies globally is the same reason AMV BBDO CCO Nadja Lossgott and so many others came to work there – creativity, pure and simple, at the heart of the agency’s business offering. “It’s what Nancy calls our creative soul,” she says. “And it’s one that is truly built in and not bolted on.”

The team at AMV BBDO ‘Do Big Things’ by crafting what they call ‘Big Ideas That Real People Love’. Nadja goes into something of a reverie about this kind of thinking: “Big ideas that travel – across borders, audiences, platforms, and channels. They don’t just exist in ads – they live in real places: around dinner tables, down the pub, in WhatsApp groups. Big ideas that make people fall in love and don’t just follow culture – they move it, shape it, and stand the test of time, turbocharging fame and effectiveness.”

'The Work. The Work. The Work.' – coined almost 30 years ago by North America chairman Phil Dusenberry – is not disappearing from the genetics of BBDO. How could it? “The work has always been, and always will be, what drives our business,” says Xav. “Our superpower is the work. But we needed to better articulate our outlook on the world and what drives the work. ‘Big’ demands that we challenge ourselves every day to strive for the very best. And I love that. ‘Big’ is a way of thinking. And a way of working. From the way we solve big business problems with strategy and creativity, to the way we grow big talent in our business.” 

 

Crafting ‘Big Ideas That Real People Love’ is in AMV BBDO’s past and present as much as its future. Nicholas Hulley, CCO alongside Nadja, rattles off campaigns that embody that ethos. He thinks of ‘White out of Red’ for The Economist, ‘It’s Good to Talk’ for BT and ‘Try Something New Today’ for Sainsbury's as “legendary big idea thinking.” It continues in work like ‘Beyond Techspectations’ for electrical appliance retailer Currys. 

“But the biggest, for me, is Guinness,” Nick says. “Almost every generation of AMVer has been asked to interpret the pillars of Guinness: Power, Goodness and Communion. From ‘Surfer’ and ‘Swimblack’ to ‘Sapeurs’ to ‘Singing Pints’ and launching the Premier League sponsorship on the remote Eriskay Island, we’ve helped Guinness become the UK’s best-selling beer. Because the best ideas run and run, evolving, and re-imagining themselves.” 

2024 deserves a look in the rear-view mirror. Nadja celebrates a year of “bold, culture-shaping work – combining creative ambition with strategic rigor.” She’s proud to have injected humour and energy into the tech retail space with Currys’  ’Beyond Techspectations’ platform, reminding people of the joy of in-store shopping while leading to a 44% year-on-year increase in ROI and double-digit year-on-year CRM sales growth. 

AMV BBDO also helped Guinness roll out its biggest-ever global campaign, activating its Premier League sponsorship with what Nadja commends as “iconic storytelling, stunning visuals, and cultural resonance worldwide.” With Sheba’s ‘Gravy Race’, the agency turned a product demo into a new sport that dominated social media. It rebranded the RSPCA for the first time in 50 years, giving a beloved institution a modern, empathetic identity, impacting fundraising. With Bodyform’s ’Never Just a Period’, the London creative shop continued to break taboos around women’s bodies, “resonating across generations who have long felt overlooked or dismissed,” she adds. AMV BBDO ended the year with a powerful farewell to Lewis Hamilton for the Mercedes F1 Team, striking an emotional chord with fans worldwide. The campaign was picked up by lots of huge publications from The Guardian to The New York Times, and even F1 commentator David Croft referenced the campaign tagline ‘Every Dream Needs a Team’ as Hamilton completed his final lap. 

 

 

“If last year was about laying the groundwork for success, 2025 is about delivering on that promise, so that we can do even bigger things for our clients’ businesses,” asserts Xav, who joined the Omnicom agency from Havas London around a year ago. In January, AMV BBDO strengthened its executive leadership team with Jo Arden joining as group chief strategy officer and Jemima Monies as group chief growth officer – important hires as the group looks to drive business transformation and creative excellence across AMV BBDO and Redwood BBDO. “Last year, we were back in the room for some of the industry’s most competitive pitches,” he adds, “with four big wins in the last four months of 2024 alone – including Mercedes F1 Team, E.ON Next and Philips Personal Care – and we are back at it this year.”

 

Nick is confident that the work AMV BBDO is creating for 2025 lives up to ‘Do Big Things’. “We have big, juicy, wildly ambitious campaigns coming out that we think people will love,” he says. He teases “more big, bold work” for TENA, Bodyform, and Maltesers as well as “exciting” campaigns coming out for much-loved brands Decathlon, Sheba and Whiskas. The agency is in production as we speak on its Channel 4 Diversity in Advertising Award-winning campaign, ‘The Sigh of Relief’ for Currys, which comes out in May.

 

But it’s not all about bigness. For Nadja, it’s important to stress the position that her agency doesn’t make advertising that just advertising people love. “As an agency we’ve always been obsessed with understanding real people. And we’re talking real people,” she stresses. “In all their glory, across our nation and beyond. We laugh, cry, and share with our clients’ buyers, shoppers, drinkers, colleagues, constituents, fans, and fanatics to truly get under their skin. It’s this that leads to rich insights that fuel our creative work.”

 

While ‘The Work. The Work. The Work.’ has left a focus on creativity that will never leave BBDO, the new positioning is broader than outputs alone. ‘“Do Big Things’ isn’t just about the work,” says Xav. “It’s also about the people who make it happen. Big ideas come from everyone, and thrive in an environment built on passion, ambition, and relentless dedication to craft. Big brings opportunity not only for our clients, but also for our people – helping them grow and build boundless careers for themselves, with opportunities to work across our unrivalled list of world-class clients, helping to solve some of the biggest business and societal challenges out there today.”