Bristol agency named best marketing and advertising startup in the UK

Earworm wins Marketing & Advertising StartUp of the Year at the 2026 UK StartUp Awards, three years after starting out in Bristol

Earworm, the Bristol podcast and video agency, has been named national winner of Marketing & Advertising StartUp of the Year at the UK StartUp Awards 2026.

The award was announced last night at the national final, held at Ideas Fest at Champneys in Tring.

More than 2,000 businesses entered this year. Over 900 were shortlisted across ten UK nations and regions, and only regional winners went through to the national final. Now in their fifth year, the awards are judged by a panel of more than 100 people from industry, academia and investment.

Earworm was founded in Bristol in 2023 and makes podcasts and video for brands and businesses including IG Group, KPMG, Cisco, Soldo and Mirakl.

The agency builds its own software alongside the production work. Its analytics platform, Insight Studio, shows clients what their content is actually doing, rather than how many times it was downloaded.

The win lands as video podcasting reshapes the format. In July, Edison Research found that YouTube had overtaken Spotify as the service UK weekly podcast listeners use most, 29 per cent to 28 per cent, for the first time on record.

The team has grown from three people to sixteen, and the agency is opening in the United States this autumn.

Ben Farley, founder and CEO of Earworm, said:

"This belongs to the team. Brilliant, creative, strategic. They make the work, and the work won this.

"Huge thanks to our clients too. They took a leap of faith on an early stage agency, and I don’t take that lightly.

“Winning nationally, from Bristol, means a great deal. We’re not going anywhere.”