Rise at Seven: DADI’s ‘Agency of the Year’
James Hayward-Browne Marketing Manager
4 min read
Thursday, 20th January 2022
It’s always a crazy ride at Rise at Seven. Since the start, we’ve been blowing our own expectations out of the water, and this week was no different. How, you ask? We’d love to tell you.
We’ve been doing pretty well lately. We’ve worked with some dream clients, made some campaigns we couldn’t be prouder of, and even surpassed 100 risers. All in all, there’s not much that could make our lives any better - or so we thought.
Enter: The Drum Awards for the Digital Industries (or DADIs, for short). For anyone who doesn’t know, these are a pretty big deal in the industry, and winning any of their awards has been a huge dream since Rise’s inception. We put ourselves forward for the biggest award, ‘Agency of the Year’, in 2020, only to be pipped at the post by a long-established and impressive agency. Did this discourage us? Absolutely not. It’s like being beaten at tennis by Federer - you can’t really feel that bad about it, because he’s been doing this for years, and you only picked up a tennis racket for the first time two years ago.
That’s why, when we were named the DADI ‘Agency of the Year’ for 2021, we could tick off one of the biggest items on our bucket list. When Rise was created in 2019, with just two people and a whole lot of ambition, the global objective was (and still is) to become the most innovative search agency in the world, tying search and creativity together for the biggest results - and this award shows we are doing just that.
Winning this award proves what we’ve known all along: that we are delivering industry-leading results and creating something truly special. And it’s not even our commercial success that we’re the most proud of.
Each and every one of our Risers meets our core values through and through: sharp as a tack, an expert in their field, enthusiastic as hell and proud to be us. It’s our incredible team that makes winning awards like this go from a dream to a reality. That’s why we offer them the best benefits in the biz, from unlimited access to MoreHappi coaching sessions and top-level maternity and paternity leave schemes, to fully paid internships and a state of the art office.
Speaking of the office, our Sheffield HQ is doing exactly what Rise at Seven is doing across the world: relentlessly growing. We are close to finishing the brand new space on the seventh floor (always on brand), complete with stunning skyline views, a relaxing sunken sofa area and a brand new Rise at Seven studio. Here, we can expand and experiment with the content we put out (keep an eye out, we’ve got some cool stuff in the works), and continue our goal to create a space where creativity and culture thrives. It’s properly amazing. Don’t believe us? Here’s a photo to prove it.
This new space not only allows our entire Sheffield team to be in the office at once, but it also gives us the opportunity to host external events that we care about. And believe it or not, in true Rise fashion, we already have one planned before the office has even opened. To celebrate Black History Month, we are hosting a mixer for black students, where they’ll hear talks from current Risers who’ll give advice and answer questions on how to get into the best industry in the world (we may be a little biased). If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, book your free ticket now - we’d love to see you there.
Winning this award is still only the start of the Rise at Seven journey. This brings our total award tally up to 52 - and is the 29th win this year so far. It’s an amazing achievement, and is a true credit to the amazing team we work with every single day. We don’t do it for the awards (although they’re pretty nice to get), we do it to keep our goal of industry domination on track - and boy, are we on track. First stop, the DADIs; second stop, the world.
(P.S. You should be thankful that we didn’t do a single DADI/Daddy pun this whole time. It’s that kind of self restraint and quality control that wins us Agency of the Year awards).