Although French-owned agency giant Publicis Groupe does not publish quarterly profit figures, its third quarter trading report reflects the ad industry’s current stagnation.
Revenue for the quarter reached $592.9 million (€588.77m; £373.94m) – although on an organic basis this was down 3.9% year-on-year. New business gains, however, were quantified at $694.5m, more than compensating for the organic shortfall.
European organic revenues were down 3.7%; likewise in North America where the drop was larger at 5.8%. Billings, however, grew 28.5% year-on-year courtesy of the inflow of new accounts. Total new business for the year to date is $1.51 billion.
The most successful network was Saatchi & Saatchi, returning an organic revenue growth of 1.2% across the first three quarters – a sharp contrast to Publicis Worldwide which dropped 6.5% on the same basis. Organic growth was also maintained (5.2%) by Zenith Optimedia Group, jointly owned with Cordiant Communications.
The numbers exclude all input from Bcom3 Group, the merger with which was not concluded until September 24. However, it was revealed that Bcom3 reported Q3 organic revenues of $453.1 million, 4.6% down year-on-year, plus net new business of $70.5 million.
Data sourced from: AdAge.com; additional content by WARC staff
