Agency of the year

Kokoro achieved its best year in the 12 months prior to entering the Research Live agency of the year category, with turnover up 10% and profit increasing by 72%.

In a challenging market, the agency’s strategy was to mitigate uncertainty by moving the business towards its subscription service, resulting in its turnover increasing by 37%, while the company’s fieldwork arm’s turnover rose by 21%.

Clients spending over £100,000 increased by 3%, new clients added 10% to its revenue, and Kokoro retained 100% of its top 10 clients and 95% of the top 20.

The agency also maintained its headcount of 58 and has focused on strengthening its workplace culture, with part-time and flexi-time options, hybrid working and a company-wide team supporting training, EDI, CSR, wellbeing and social events. The company has invested over 3,650 hours in training.

Kokoro developed an AI tool for subscriptions (in beta) for faster searches and analysis of the 20,000+ question database, and it has introduced ‘the playbook’ – a year-round consumer mood guide built on 156 real-life stories, organised into eight emotional seasons with the aim of shaping long-term strategy and triggering seasonal ideas.

The company’s panel quality control is 100% phone-based, which it says results in panellists feeling valued and fosters engagement.

In other work, the company has shared knowledge with the industry through: a panel at the MRS annual conference; subscription webinars; four free events; an industry leader podcast; and participation in a LinkedIn Hackathon to share insight.

It also carried out a pro-bono local business project as part of graduate on-boarding, and works pro-bono for Big Issue Group and Adoption UK. Additionally, the agency’s charity shop, Raindrops, is 12 years old – profits are donated to cancer charities and research and it has raised £220,000 to date.  

"Winning agency of the year is an incredible honour," said Kokoro founder Alison Bainbridge. "It reflects the passion and commitment our team brings to every single project. I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve achieved together."

Best place to work

Kokoro marked 30 years of business in 2024. Overall staff retention is 80% ( 100% for the senior team).

The business is 65% female ( 66% of the senior leadership team) and it has focused on recruiting new talent and increasing its under-25 profile – 12% under-25 in 2025, up from 5% in 2023.

Kokoro says this has led to opportunities and learning including: its 2024 insight graduates self-learning biometric equipment via a pro-bono local business project; graduate/entry level junior project managers instigating change in Zest team’s career structure and training; and an AI data search tool explored by the agency’s analytics graduate and AI developer.

The agency has year 10 and 12 school links, work experience and university student paid internships.

Kokoro conducts an annual climate survey to monitor and measure how it performs as an employer, with the overall experience of working at the agency at 89% NPS, with engagement scoring 93%, wellbeing at 92% and values at 92%. The survey also identified consistency of the company’s communications/vision and personal development/objective setting as areas to work on.

The agency is focusing particularly on developing its people managers, including one-to-one coaching, and promoted 29 people across all levels in 24 months. As part of its employee engagement approach, a cross-agency team leads quarterly themed initiatives across communications, development, insight sharing, wellbeing, EDI and CSR, while another group focuses on employee consultation.

Bainbridge said: "Being recognised as the best place to work means more to me than any other award. It reflects the culture our team has built together. We couldn’t have done it without every single member of the team."

Pictured: The Kokoro team on stage at MRS Awards 2025

• The full list of MRS Awards winners can be found here.