Media Ink Consolidation or Consolation? Madison Avenue's big get bigger

Joe Mandese

Joe Mandese examines the billings of the biggest seven media buying conglomerates and concludes that, in spite of their size, they control only a minority of total spend in the U.S.

Media Ink

Consolidation or consolation? Madison Avenue's big get bigger

Joe Mandese Media Buyer's Daily  

Perhaps you've heard the joke circulating around Madison Avenue recently. Given the accelerated rate of marketer and ad agency consolidation, the advertising business will soon merge into one big client serviced by one large agency. The punchline: the client fires the agency and takes the business inhouse.

Not so funny, you say? Well, neither is it close to becoming any sort of reality. For all the hype surrounding the frenetic pace of agency mergers and acquisitions, the consolidation of the ad...

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