‘We’re absolutely thrilled’. No.1 UK ranking for South West creative agency

A Bristol creative agency has been named as the best outside of London in a ranking compiled by respected industry magazine Campaign.

Happy Hour Productions, which works with top brands including NFU Mutual, SunLife, Help for Heroes and National Trust, hit top spot on the prestigious table after appearing at number two last year.

As well as being the No.1 agency outside of the capital, Happy Hour is ranked at number 27 nationwide – five places up on 2024.

The achievement comes as the agency, which specialises in TV and video advertising, closes out its latest financial year with 11% growth in revenue and three new client wins in the charity and financial services sectors.

Happy Hour – run by an 80% female leadership team – is also currently hiring across client services and post-production and is poised for greater growth in 2025.

It said bringing the accolade home to Bristol against tough competition from agencies based in Newcastle and Brighton showed that, in a challenging year for the advertising and marketing industry, it had bucked trends and outperformed the competition.

Happy Hour Productions managing director Nicola Tyler said the agency was “absolutely thrilled” with this year’s ranking.

“We set ourselves the challenge of making the No.1 spot and to achieve it really gives the team the recognition they deserve,” she added.

“Thank you to the brilliant clients who trust us to bring their brands to life – and stay with us year after year. Bristol might be our home, but our creative impact reaches far beyond!”

Campaign’s agency rankings are one of the most hotly anticipated benchmarks for the industry.

They are based on Nielsen Ad Intel’s measurement of media spend across each agency’s clients, meaning that just under £60m of media spend in the UK is a Happy Hour production.

The agency, formed more than 21 years ago and is based in The Picture House on Lower Park Row, works with brands to create “stand-out advertising that delivers outstanding results – giving clients plenty of reasons to be happy”.

It is one of the few agencies to have creative and production under one roof, with its own in-house studio, edit suites, grading suite and sound booth.

It also works on both live action and animation projects, from large-scale set builds to 3D character animation.