From Goodby to Great: How Shop Built a 'Content House'

Agency of the Year: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners

SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) -- For a couple of years now, Goodby has been firing on all cylinders. There's the new business lately, but what's even more impressive, especially for a shop with a highly creative DNA, is Goodby's success in accumulating strong business case studies for big brands. That, among other reasons, is why the agency tops Ad Age's Agency A-List.

How Edelman Is Changing the Idea of a PR Agency

Agency Executive of the Year: Richard Edelman

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Where other public-relations firms have made meek advances into the blogging and social-network fray or retrenched into the more-controlled environs of public affairs or financial PR, Edelman has jumped into the consumer maelstrom headfirst.

Decade-Old Tribal Transcends Digital

Global Agency of the Year: Tribal DDB

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- For no less than a decade, Tribal DDB has been steadily growing a worldwide footprint to serve up big ideas for big marketers. It's an agency that, while expert in most things digital, is no less creative and collaborative and brand-savvy for that technical know-how. Oh, and it's growing like crazy.

Pop Culture With a Twist

Multicultural Agency of the Year: Groupo Gallegos

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Grupo Gallegos figures out how to interpret popular-culture icons such as the pink Energizer Bunny, Fruit of the Loom's fruit guys and "Got milk?" for Hispanic consumers who didn't grow up with them -- and wins creative awards doing it, along with more sales for its clients.

No Name-on-the-Door Leader? No Problem for Hill Holliday

Comeback Agency of the Year: Hill Holiday

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Boston bold-faced name Jack Connors' 2006 resignation, plus a couple of thin new-business years, led many in the industry to wonder whether Hill Holiday would cave. But far from falling apart, Hill Holliday emerged stronger than before, catapulting its status as a well-liked regional shop to that of an innovative, national presence.

Next in Line

Keep an Eye out for These Shops in '08

Here are the not-quite-ready-for-A-List players, powers in their own right nipping at the heels of the industry's best. If you're not already doing so, be sure to keep a close eye on this group in 2008.

Agency A-List: Crispin Porter & Bogusky

Crispin Porter & Bogusky is no longer a medium-size, indie hotshop from Miami. Now, it's a big, MDC Partners-owned hotshop from Miami and Boulder, Colo.

Agency A-List: Martin Agency

The 500-person, Richmond, Va., agency is living proof that an ad shop that pretty much still stakes its rep on TV spots -- albeit really, really good TV spots -- can be no less vital in a commercial-skipping, digital-skewing world.

Agency A-List: Starcom

Since unbundling from their creative brethren late last century, media agencies generally have struggled to build potent brands of their own. The biggest exception to this has been Starcom.

Agency A-List: Wieden & Kennedy

In 2007, global billings at Wieden were up 18% to $1.7 billion, not counting Heineken. Plus, the agency achieved the unthinkable, making Coca-Cola Co. ads among the best in the 2007 Super Bowl.

Agency A-List: Saatchi & Saatchi

Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi has come a long way, transforming itself from a parking lot for package-goods accounts to a place where brands are transformed.

Agency A-List: AKQA

One of the biggest stories of 2007 was digital giants aQuantive and Digitas getting snapped up by bigger ad players. If you're wondering who will be the next to make a big move, take a long look at AKQA, an agency that's very quietly turning itself into a full-service marketing partner that just happens to have digital roots.

Agency A-List: Vidal Partnership

In 2007, Vidal's biggest clients all changed marketing heads or fired their ad agencies or both, but Vidal remained firmly entrenched as U.S. Hispanic agency for each one.

Agency A-List: Edelman

Consider the dominant marketing and business trends of the past year, and there's a good chance that public-relations agency Edelman is already one step ahead of its competition in defining them.

Agency A-List: Anomaly

For don't-call-us-an-ad-agency Anomaly, the priority on innovative deals over slavishness to meager fees translates into not just a different way of getting paid but a different way of doing business.