PRWeek Toasts Zeno Group as 2011 Agency of the Year!

In choosing Zeno Group as the PRWeek Agency of the Year, the panel of judges cited our 16% revenue growth, the passion and creativity that we have for our client work, the loyalty and respect of our clients, the enthusiasm of our staff and our ability to recruit top-level talent ahead of the aforementioned revenue curve.

The full article can be viewed at: http://bit.ly/fj13N4. Our press release about the win will be posted on the Zeno blog later this week.

Rather than reiterating the humbling article that PRWeek wrote about our win, we thought you might appreciate a view from Tables 28 and 48 at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers on Thursday, March 10th.

When we entered our PRWeek submission for 2011 Midsize Agency of the Year, it was a far different time. It was October 2010. The sun was shining and the leaves just had begun changing color.

Actually, it was a lot like it is today (55 and sunny in New York today with leaves just starting to grow on the trees in Union Square Park).

When you looked at the binder we submitted with all of our credentials for this award, you knew that my fellow Zenoites and I were proud of the work we were doing and happy to be a part of the Zeno team. When you watched the video and read the testimonials that our clients put forth for our entry, you could tell that they were pleased with their choice to work with Zeno Group.

Nearly six months later, 15 Zeno team members and some of our client partners and friends found ourselves dressed to the 9’s at the Awards. It wasn’t the 9’s that we’ll remember now, though; it’s the 10’s.

Thank you, PRWeek!

At 10:00 p.m., we found out that we had beat our very worthy competition to win the 2011 Midsize Agency of the Year (the category meaning that our year-to-year revenue was between $10-$65 million). We clapped, hugged, smiled, and watched as Barby accepted the award from PRWeek and Deloitte, who sponsored this award. Then, we sat back down and got to tweeting so that everyone across the Zeno network could celebrate, too!

Then our sister agency, Edelman took home the 2011 Large Agency of the Year, and we couldn’t have been happier. The whole DJE family was glowing. Finally, gulp, it was time for friendly, family competition as we would compete against the Boutique, Small and Large Agencies of the Year.

At 10:03 P.M., Zeno Group was named Agency of the Year! High-fives and virtual high-fives by way of retweets, Facebook posts and emails flooded in.

It was a late night of celebrating, but at a 7:45 a.m. breakfast with Richard Edelman, our enthusiasm was still unbridled. We thanked our clients, partners and media contacts around the world. As Richard and Barby noted, “This is only the beginning.”

At the risk of sounding liked we have just chugged an entire bin full of the Zeno Kool-Aid (in Zeno-colored lemon-lime flavor of course), we don’t plan on changing much on our road to a repeat. We’re back to our daily work of churning out innovative work for our clients; only now, our partners might notice a couple of extra lines under our email signatures:

PRWeek Agency of the Year 2011

PRWeek Midsize Agency of the Year 2011

And, well, that’s just plain #winning.