How Impero won five ‘agency of the year’ awards

Quick note to congratulate an amazing agency called Impero. They’ve just won their third agency of the year award for 2018 (the latest from The Drum). I wanted to share three observations on what has made Impero so successful.

[Stop press March 2019: now five!]

I started working with the team a couple of years ago. I’m chairman of several great companies, implementing strategic plans to enable step changes in growth.

Here is what has made Impero so special, and what they’ve got right:

1. Positioning
   A day’s workshop resulted in a highly differentiated market proposition: “We make tired brands famous again.” They followed this up with a great deal of hard work, restructuring their marketing and sales operations – resulting in a 70% long term win rate.
2. Growth team
   By adopting a structured approach the wider leadership team has identified issues to address before scaling and executed the necessary projects. Again, this came out of a workshop to create unification and ownership of the company’s strategic direction. The actively chaired format drives very high performance and quickly identifies the most effective growth team.
3. Focus on human capital
   Impero implemented a new HR strategy with the clear goal of hiring only ‘A’ Players and this has been extremely successful. Having a first rate team makes growth-driven culture change easier – and stellar employees produce great work and attract stellar clients. Impero is now more than 60% female, and its culture is diverse and vibrant.

Impero is a fabulous place to work. If you’re in the market apply. If you’re a client, try to work with them. And if you’re part of an agency leadership team, watch what Impero are doing: they’re getting it right, and their recent awards prove that internal excellence also shows on the outside.