The top-billing creative shop in Britain for the twelve months to June 30 is Omnicom’s AMV BBDO, according to new data released last week by Nielsen Media Research. The media agency field is led by Publicis-owned ZenithOptimedia.
Here are the 2003 rankings with billings in italics and year-on-year percentage variances in parentheses …
Creative agencies:
01. Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO £345.05m (-7.89%)
02. McCann-Erickson £301.16m (+2.96%)
03. J Walter Thompson London £284.59m (+25.68%)
04. Publicis £276.32m (+21.54%)
05. Ogilvy & Mather £263.62m (-0.05%)
06. M&C Saatchi £259.08m (+29.60%)
07. Lowe UK £247.34m (-4.51%)
08. Leo Burnett £217.05m (-19.14%)
09. Saatchi & Saatchi £211.03m (-11.68%)
10. TBWA\London £210.25m (+31.13%)
TBWA\London enters the top ten for the first time. Of the elite decade only one, M&C Saatchi, is wholly UK-owned. It also enjoyed the highest percentage increase in billings among the nine shops that have ranked previously. Lowe UK, in seventh place, fell from third position in the 2002 table, mainly due to its resignation last Septemberof the £43m Orange account.
Media agencies:
01. ZenithOptimedia £644.84m (-3.00%)
02. MediaCom £601.43 (+ 22.96%)
03. Carat £541.52m (-2.79%)
04. MindShare £511.84m (+9.15%)
05. OMD UK £435.28m (+39.19%)
06. Starcom Motive £391.17m (+20.83%)
07. Initiative Media £387.94m (+18.53%)
08. Universal McCann £314.34m (+22.06% )
09. PHD £282.64m (+2.83%)
10. Starcom MediaVest £254.23m (-6.45%)
New numero uno ZenithOptimedia surged past last year’s top-ranking MediaCom following the merger of Publicis’ previously discrete British media shops.
Data sourced from: BrandRepublic (UK); additional content by WARC staff
