Do creative agency billings matter? Are they still the best common source of information telling us which agencies are on the up and which aren’t?
Common wisdom has it that they aren’t, with agency income mostly in fees as opposed to media commission. We might demur though and this week’s Campaign/Nielsen UK creative agency billings table is pretty revealing – despite all the obvious caveats. The full lists, including media agencies, are here (subscription required.)
The top five are:
1/Saatchi & Saatchi (£492.70, +13% on 2023’s £435.90)
2/VCCP (465.10,+28%)
3/Leo Burnett (435.90,+28%)
4/BBH (337.40,+18%)
5/McCann (287.90-13%)
So we see that Publicis Groupe’s Saatchi & Saatchi is enviably consistent – top two years in a row – with its Leo Burnett (or should that be Leo?) coming up fast on the rails. These together with BBH dwarf WPP’s agency line-up (VML, Ogilvy, Grey) even with New Commercial Arts’ £147m (now bigger than new owner Ogilvy in terms of ad billings) in the mix.
Omnicom’s adam&eveDDB, on eighth with £205.30m, has had a spectacular fall from grace in billings terms. It was the UK’s biggest four years ago. Omnicom’s AMV BBDO is on the same number, for decades it was by far the biggest UK creative agency. Next 15’s House337 looks to had have had a pretty gruesome time but its billings have only fallen from £168m to 150.10, although the Santander loss has, presumably, still to register.
A&E has lost or resigned some big accounts (National Lottery the former, John Lewis/Waitrose the latter) although it’s put on international-based business, like Disney, which may pay higher fees. Supermarket accounts are pretty good at boosting billings even though they grind down fees. Lucky Generals has been hit hard by losing the Co-Op.
So, as above, these don’t tell the whole story. But when a lot of money is going through a business some of it sticks. And it’s easy to see from these why Publicis is currently wiping the floor with the competition.
PS Next year? VCCP looks a good bet although if Publicis rolls Publicis London into Leo Burnett…..
