Best New Agency: One Minute to Midnight

One Minute to Midnight was established in June 2016 by Paul Laver, previously owner of Olive Research, and Douglas Dunn, former co-founder and CEO of Tuned In Research.

Based in West London, One Minute to Midnight’s (OMTM) premise is creating human insights by exploring people’s and brands’ values. To help do this, it has created its Dimensions Project, a biannual in-depth look at human values and how they relate to specific business areas. In its most recent report, it looks at values and global brands.

And to very quickly drill down into value insight, OMTM has gamified the process with value-specific beer mats – 10 in all, to represent global human values – that people and clients can select to best represent their, or their department's, value systems. This simple technique creates an instant focus on the values that matter most. It is currently developing an app to take this game forward.

In its short time, OMTM has achieved a strong financial base and impressive growth, thanks to a client list including brands such as PlayStation, VisitBritain, Mastercard, Kenwood and PokerStars.

Dunn said of winning the award: "The whole process involved with the award has been great. It was really interesting to take a step back when we first started writing the submission and look at all the things we’d done in our first year. By the time we had finished it we had a little moment where we said ‘look at the calibre of that client list, the amazing pieces of work we’ve done and the growth – that’s actually very impressive’.

"The client testimonials we got were really touching too and showed that our work is making a real impact which had a lot of meaning for us. It’s always really touching to see the awards in action and the culmination of so many people’s hard work throughout that year. We were super happy to win and we will be working our socks off to keep doing great work and delivering more human truths so we can win some more."

The judges said: "One Minute to Midnight has had a great first year as an agency. An impressive client list developed over a short space of time combined with solid financials and a creative approach make this business one to watch."