Uncommon Creative Studio founders Lucy Jameson, Natalie Graeme and Nils Leonard talk to Campaign's UK editor Maisie McCabe about winning Campaign's UK creative agency of the year.

Despite being a three-year-old business and having to navigate the Covid-19 pandemic, Uncommon triumphed over a strong field of advertising agencies to win Campaign's creative agency of the year for 2020. 

The agency has now grown to a headcount of 70, working with more than 30 brands. It produced stand-out work despite the trials of the pandemic, such as ITV's "Britain Get Talking" mental health awareness work, a first-of-its-kind campaign for the UK's major TV broadcasters, and creating hand sanitiser for Brewdog. 

Jameson said: "Agencies and clients have often had a formal relationship… but last year all of that got smashed out of the water. That’s a joy because clients said they needed to do something quickly and we’re good at that, so that really played in our favour.”

The agency also won 15 new projects for brands such as Beats By Dre and The Week. 

Leonard believes "not enough agencies enquire as to why that client is in the room" when a brand is reviewing for a new ad agency.

"Part of the secret of our relationships is to always start in the right place together," Leonard added. "The ones that come in and have seen our work, or have seen Lucy or Nat talk… everything tends to come from that. In this period it was really critical we did that.”