2021 Agency of the Year: Opinium

Opinium has had its strongest ever financial performance, raising revenues 33%, profit up 145% and registering the company’s consecutive 14th year of growth.

Despite the onset of Covid-19, Opinium retained 48 of its top 50 clients from the 2019/20 financial year, while 26 of its top 100 clients have worked with the company for more than a decade. Five of those 26 clients are still in Opinium’s top 10 clients.

2021 also saw a 14% year-on-year increase in organic in-bound requests, 36% proposal conversion rate and 24 new clients, as well as 12 clients who had never previously conducted market research.

The company’s New York office expanded its staff, and an Amsterdam headquarters opened in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Opinium generated 22,543 media mentions, up 27% year-on-year, and debriefed 15 politicians, as well as informing four government consultations and worked with the Y7 to understand what UK youth wanted from G7 leaders.

Technologies such as predictive market orientation, evidence-based hyper-localisation and virtual reality/augmented reality survey integration have also been put in place at Opinium.

As well as its business success, Opinium has also applied to become a B-Corporation, pays 25% of profit to staff in annual bonuses, is 33% owned by employees, signed the MRS CEO Inclusion and NetZero pledges and created four annual paid internships with MyLifeMySay and 10,000 Black interns to increase industry access.

The company also avoided furlough and redundancy during Covid-19, including not paying dividends in 2020/21 to protect employees. All employees received an above-inflation pay rise and 20 new staff joined the company.

Opinium spent £33,319 on employee wellbeing and engagement initiatives, and 97% of staff said they felt the business would support them if they were struggling with their mental health.

James Endersby, chief executive of Opinium, said: “This award means so much to everyone at Opinium. We’ve consistently delivered excellence to clients and put our colleagues at the centre of everything we do, which has translated into double-digit growth annually for over a decade, and our name on the best agency shortlist eight times in the past nine years.

“This win means a huge amount to everyone at the agency. Huge credit must go to every single member of Team Opinium.”

The full list of 2021 MRS Awards can be found here.