PARIS: Mediaedge:cia, one of a trio of specialist media agencies within the WPP Group stable, has toppled sibling shop MindShare from the world numero uno spot, according to the latest study by RECMA (an acronym for Paris-headquartered Research Company Evaluating Media Agency Industry).

The study, titled Competitiveness in Pitches 2005-mid-2006, represents eighteen months of data collation from 426 media agencies in thirty-nine nations. It assessed over 5,000 account moves in order to establish a global hierarchy which grades each agency from A+ to C.

RECMA's top twelve shops are . . .
  1. Mediaedge:cia (WPP Group)
  2. Starcom MediaVest Group (Publicis Groupe)
  3. Carat (Aegis Group)
  4. MindShare (WPP)
  5. OMD (Omnicom Group)
  6. MediaCom (WPP)
  7. ZenithOptimedia (Publicis)
  8. Initiative (Interpublic Group)
  9. MPG (Havas Media)
  10. Universal McCann (Interpublic)
  11. PHD (Omnicom)
  12. Vizeum (Aegis)
A free abbreviated copy of the RECMA report can be downloaded by clicking here.

Data sourced from AdAge (USA); additional content by WARC staff