We launch the inaugural The Drum Honors fortnight with arguably the most competitive list of all: the agencies – across all disciplines – that garnered the most The Drum Awards this year.
This agency took the top spot for agencies in The Drum Honors 2025, but who else is named? (Area 23)
Today, we kick off The Drum Honors: a fortnight-long celebration of the top companies, campaigns and people from an entire year of marketing accolades.
Pulling in data from across The Drum’s vast awards program all over the world – in disciplines including advertising, design, PR and communications, media, experiential, B2B, social, content, and digital experience – the Honors celebrate those who have gathered the very most gongs (and plaudits from top judges) in 2025.
We start today with agencies: the lifeblood of the marketing industry and the focal point of its best work (not to mention competition).
Incorporating data from across The Drum Marketing Awards in EMEA, APAC and the Americas, and our global Awards Festival held last month at our London HQ, we can today reveal that our most awarded agency of 2025 is Area 23.
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A part of New York holding-company IPG until just last week, the health-specialist agency has become part of the reshuffled Omnicom Health in Omnicom’s post-takeover consolidation.
For those who tuned into The Drum Awards Festival, Area 23’s top spot will come as no surprise: it took home bagfuls of trophies over the week, including at the grand finale Network Agency of the Year and the Editor’s Choice award, the latter for its historic work for Brazilian football club Gavião Kyikatêjê.
It’s a fresh top spot, with Area23 having landed fifth in this year’s mid-year World Creative Rankings update, soaring all the way up from 19th in last year’s full WCR rankings.
Coming in second: independent PR and communications shop The Romans, named Independent Agency of the Year (sponsored by Microsoft Advertising) in our grand finale. At The Drum Awards for PR, it bagged the President’s Award for ‘Lidl by Lidl’.
The rest of the top 50 (well, 51, thanks to a tie) we publish today is a veritable tour of global adland, featuring ad shops from Jakarta to Randburg via Stoke-on-Trent; in-house shops and independents; out-of-home to programmatic.
You can see our top 51 most awarded agencies of the year below – and look out in the coming days for breakdowns of the top-performing agencies by discipline and agency type; in the coming weeks, The Drum Honors will also spotlight the top brands, campaigns, and individuals.
| Rank | Agency |
|---|---|
| 1 | Area 23 |
| 2 | The Romans |
| 3 | Code and Theory |
| 4 | Ketchum London |
| 5= | Golin London |
| 5= | Dentsu Creative New York |
| 5= | Edelman UK |
| 8 | LePub Italy |
| 9 | PrettyGreen |
| 10 | Klick Health |
| 11= | Fight or Flight |
| 11= | BBC StoryWorks |
| 13= | Transmission |
| 13= | Coolr |
| 13= | VCCP London |
| 13= | GrabAds |
| 17= | Stein |
| 17= | Greenpark |
| 17= | Ogilvy UK |
| 17= | Talon |
| 17= | Rethink |
| 22= | Eyden Indonesia (Part of Volare) |
| 22= | WPP Media |
| 24= | Hearts & Science |
| 24= | 1000heads |
| 24= | EssenceMediacom |
| 24= | Plus Collaboratives |
| 24= | billups |
| 29= | Lesniak Swann |
| 29= | Brands2Life |
| 29= | VML UK |
| 29= | The Trade Desk |
| 33 | Wavemaker UK |
| 34= | Boulder Creative Studios |
| 34= | Fox Agency |
| 34= | Gameloft for brands |
| 34= | Fabric Social |
| 34= | Edelman Africa |
| 39= | Bader Rutter |
| 39= | George P. Johnson |
| 39= | Hopeful Monsters |
| 39= | WiredCo. |
| 39= | BRC Imagination Arts |
| 39= | Verve The Live Agency |
| 45= | Publicis Dublin |
| 45= | Joystick Fifco (In-house agency) |
| 45= | FUSE Create |
| 48= | NVE Experience Agency |
| 48= | SAMY |
| 48= | DEPT |
| 48= | Grand Visual |
Want more? Check out all of the top winners from this year’s The Drum Honors, browse case studies of all the winning work from this year’s The Drum Awards festival, and mark your calendar for February, when we’ll unveil 2026’s World Creative Rankings.
BRC Imagination Arts
BRC Imagination Arts is a full-service strategy, design and production company that translates brand and cultural stories into transformative human experiences....
WPP Media
Boulder Creative Studios
The companies we work with push the boundaries of creativity in science + tech. In us, they find a partner who pushes the boundaries in creativity, growth strategy...
Edelman Africa
Edelman Africa is a leading Pan-African communications consultancy that partners with businesses and organisations to evolve, promote and protect their brands and...
Fabric Social
We're a world class social creative agency working with brands including Currys, Ocado, Subway, Andrex, Kleenex, Mars, Britvic, Nando's, Big Bus Tours, Mountain...
Plus Collaboratives
PLUS Collaboratives is a multi award-winning interdisciplinary group that designs, curates, and develops experiences for our clients. From curating and creating...
billups
billups is reinventing out-of-home planning and placement for the performance age. Blending art and science, billups leads the industry with patented scientific...
Eyden Indonesia (Part of Volare)
Eyden (part of Volare Advertising Network) is a playground for forward thinkers! Starting from strategy, tech, to creative geeks. We all share the same vision and...
SAMY
SAMY. The Agency that Makes Brands Matter. We are here to lead the evolution of brand communication. We build relevance in a social first universe by integrating...
Golin London
Joystick Fifco
LePub Italy
Bader Rutter
We make your brand the Reflex Choice, which is critical in this age of unprecedented distraction. With so many competitive assaults on your audience’s mind space,...
BBC StoryWorks
BBC StoryWorks is the commercial content studio of BBC Studios, responsible for creating award-winning branded content for global audiences. We work with brands...
GrabAds
Ketchum London
Dentsu Creative New York
Dentsu Creative is a global creative agency network designed to unlock exponential growth for clients. We use Transformative Creativity as a differentiating, driving...
Hearts & Science
Hearts & Science, an Omnicom Media Group agency, transforms data signals into meaningful connections between brands and consumers that drive exponential growth. Purpose-built...
NVE Experience Agency
We are a creative marketing agency specializing in brand experience guided by the principle that ‘The Right Moment Will Transform Someone Forever.’ NVE develops...
Hopeful Monsters
We believe there are two types of brands in the world. Brands that evolve slowly, following the same old rules. Then there are Hopeful Monsters. A rare species on...
Fight or Flight
Today, B2B brands battle for attention in the same crowded space as everything else. Fight or Flight is a creative communications agency that enables B2B brands...
WiredCo.
Welcome to WiredCo., the home of ideas that move people digitally, humanly. We’re B&T's Independent Agency of the Year, Campaign Asia's Social, Content and Specialist...
Wavemaker UK
Wavemaker is a global media agency. We believe there is a better way to grow. By leveraging our deep understanding of audiences, Provocative Planning process...
Klick Health
Klick Health is the world’s largest independent commercialization partner for life sciences, focused on hacking the boundaries of health by developing, launching,...
Gameloft for brands
Gameloft for brands offers advertisers a unique level of visibility and engagement with their audiences. A leader in the development and publication of games, we...
Transmission
Transmission is the world’s largest independent global B2B marketing agency. We combine AI-enabled intelligence with human curiosity, creativity, and innovation...
Ogilvy UK
Ogilvy is all about depth and breadth - we have London's broadest and deepest skillset in communications our award-winning teams work fluidly across our core capabilities...
Greenpark
Greenpark is a global award-winning, digital content agency. 🚀 Our raison d’etre is to create amazing content that people and algorithms love. 🫶 How do...
FUSE Create
Turn Heads. That’s it.
We’ve built a collective of people and talent to do just that; through insights that incite, content that gets shared, experiences...
Area 23
A diverse, passionate group of thinkers, creators, poets, artists & technologists devoted to creating marketing ideas that change behavior. #NeverFinished
Verve The Live Agency
For over 30 years, Verve has been creating the future through experience. With offices in Dublin, London and Amsterdam, and as part of The Opus Group, we have partners...
The Romans
Partnering with The Romans is the moment you say goodbye to boring PR.
There are approximately 131,271 PR agencies on Planet Earth. Choosing the right one...
Coolr
We partner with innovative companies to reimagine how they work in the mobile age. We develop high impact social campaigns to engage audiences at scale - and rethink...
Publicis Dublin
Rethink Toronto
Rethink is more of an idea than it is a business. Rethinking changes everything. It’s how we see the world. Which is why we’re constantly rethinking what’s...
VCCP London
Code and Theory
50% creatives and 50% engineers living at the intersection of tech and creativity.
Edelman UK
DEPT®
DEPT® is a pioneering technology and marketing services company that creates integrated end-to-end digital experiences for brands such as Google, KFC, Philips,...
Talon
We provide our clients with world class service, technology, and collaboration to create exceptional OOH campaigns that deliver measurable results.
In our...
George P. Johnson
For over a century, George P. Johnson’s driving passion is helping clients foster innovation, value, growth and increased performance through the creative evolution...
The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk™ is a global technology company that empowers buyers of advertising. Through its self-service, cloud-based platform, ad buyers can create, manage,...
VML UK
VML is a global creative company - formed from the unification of Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R - two of the most-awarded creative agencies in the world. With...
Grand Visual
Grand Visual is a unique creative OOH studio. We make ideas happen. You might not know us personally, but you’ll know our campaigns. Our cutting-edge creative,...
Fox Agency
Fox Agency is an integrated agency for global B2B tech brands on a mission: To grow, expand, transform, accelerate, go-to-market, get investment. Or simply, get...
Lesniak Swann
We're the B2B marketing agency for brands that operate in complex or highly technical sectors
We believe that the most effective B2B marketing combines strong...
EssenceMediacom
Hello. We are EssenceMediacom. GroupM’s newest and largest agency, committed to delivering marketing breakthroughs for brands. We have disrupted the old...
Brands2Life
We’re an award-winning, founder-led, communications agency based in London, Minneapolis, New York and San Francisco with an extensive global capability. In December...
Stein
Stein helps build the world’s most demanded B2B brands by unifying brand and demand — strengthening each to the benefit of both. Through its Brand-to-Demand...
PrettyGreen
PrettyGreen is an independent creative communications agency with big brand ambition and a boutique agency soul, with specialists across PR, Social, Influencer Marketing...
1000heads
1000heads is a Social Transformation™ company. We combine expertise in data & analytics, strategy, technology and creativity to help the world’s best businesses...