IN THE NEWS.

New business opportunities for U.S. creative agencies accelerated in 2021, as clients held 155 reviews representing $4.8 billion in media spend, compared to 92 reviews in 2020.

Global research firm COMvergence released its New Business Barometer for the FY 2021. COMvergence reports, which are released on a quarterly basis, highlight which media agencies won and retained the most business.

Marketing and communications agency acquisitions were up sharply in 2021 after declining for several years but still below the level reached five years ago, according to a new study from COMvergence.

Priyanka Mehra joins COMvergence Worldwide as Regional Director – South Asia. Prior to her new role, she was with Havas Group India as Chief Marketing Officer, where she worked closely with the senior leadership across India, APAC, and the global offices.

Publicis Groupe’s Starcom is the top global media agency in net new business activity for the first half of 2021 according to a new analysis from agency research firm COMvergence. The net new business figures cited below are billings numbers and include retentions and also factor in business that was lost.

Today marks the official launch of The Paradox Report, a research study on the big themes that affect the Irish media and marketing sector.

In the latest report from leading independent and international research company COMvergence, Omnicom Media Group Agency OMD has been ranked the number one global and EMEA media agency based on annual billings.

In the 2020 COMvergence Media Agencies Billings and Ranking Report published today, Omnicom Media Group Agency OMD again topped the list of the 29 US media agencies evaluated in the annual accounting. This marks the fourth consecutive number one ranking for OMD USA since the COMvergence published its first US billings report in 2017.

Madison Avenue's biggest media buyers saw their total media billings volume erode in 2020, but not at the rate of the overall marketplace, making the U.S.'s "Big 3" -Publicis Media, GroupM and Omnicom Media Group- bigger fish in a shrinking pond.

Omnicom's OMD remained the top-ranked U.S. media agency by billings for full-year 2020, according to a new report from agency tracker COMvergence. Publicis Media was the top-ranked media agency group for the same period according to the report.

Research firm COMvergence conducted a survey about the make-up of pitches within a 24-month time frame, in 2019 and 2020. It involved participation from U.S. creative and/or media and digital agencies. Of 570 agency changes, only 13 advertisers, just 2%, selected agencies from the same holding company when choosing multiple agencies.

Major U.S. marketers appear to be streamlining their agency reviews, moving from an "unbundled" approach to consolidated media and creative account pitches, according to an analysis by advertising accounts research firm COMvergence.

COMvergence has released its annual review of Global Media Pitches – recorded and assessed through its benchmark studies and analysis over 2020.

According to the latest global media agency study “New Business Barometer for Q1-Q3 2020” published by COMvergence, Wavemaker came out as the top global media agency in new business results with a Total New Business Value of $1.1B (including $370M of retentions) during the first nine months of 2020.

It’s win, place and show for GroupM agencies in the global new business department according to an analysis of media agencies by COMvergence for the first nine months of the year.

So far this year, 950 advertisers have concluded media reviews worth $10 billion in ad spending, while another 75 are underway that represent $5 billion, according to research firm COMvergence.

WPP's GroupM was the big winner in terms of net new business gains during the first quarter of 2020, according to a just-released compilation by COMvergence.

Like much of the rest of the global economy, new business activity slowed precipitously for the media services industry during the first quarter of 2020.

In the past year or two, the data provided by COMvergence has continuously appeared in industry information and reports. At the beginning of 2019, GroupM, a global media investment management group under WPP Dabang Group, announced that it will use COMvergence's operational and business development analysis reports. As a benchmark, the two parties have reached global cooperation.

Omnicom's OMD came out on top for new business wins by a media agency in 2019 with a total of $US2.27 billion, including $US1.268 billion in retentions. Notable wins include the $US1 billion Disney North American account, of which $US700 million was retained, according to the 2019 media agency New Business Barometer by Marcom research house COMvergence.

The agency also led the industry in retention, successfully defending more than $1.2b in business that had been in play in 2019 – approximately a half billion more than its closest competitor.

Omnicom Media Group agency OMD had the best net new business performance of any global media network in 2019 as reported by COMvergence, the international independent research company.

Madison Avenue's acquisitions marketplace has slowed down dramatically over the past few years, turning in just 51 deals among the major agency holding companies and management consultants in 2019, according to the latest annual tally from consultant COMvergence.

COMvergence founder and CEO Olivier Gauthier characterised 2019 as “another busy and challenging year for media agencies,” explaining that of the $24 billion of global media spend monitored by COMvergence through media pitches, only around $6 billion (25%) remained with incumbent agencies.

Despite the high-profile closings and acquisitions in 2019, 2020 could be a great year for independent agencies. Industry trends, including clients moving to project-based relationships and new capabilities leading to the democratization of data, are cutting down on scale-based advantages of global networks, allowing independent agencies to thrive.

GroupM will close 2019 with more than $50B in annual billings for the first time, and three GroupM agencies in the top five of global media agency networks based on billings, according to COMvergence’s projection.

OMD has retained its title as the world's biggest media agency, securing the top spot by projected billings in the COMvergence 2019 global billings rankings report.

Omnicom Media Group Agency OMD Worldwide tops the latest COMvergence global billings ranking report based on projected 2019 media agency and group billings.

Thirty-eight media planning and buying assignments worth a combined US$264 million (all figures in U.S. dollars) were reviewed in Canada in the first half of the year, according to a new report from French marcom research firm COMvergence.

Last week, data consultancy COMvergence published its “New Business Barometer for H1 2019” report for media agencies, which found that Carat topped the list for agencies with a new business value of $2 billion, including retentions.

Retailers have been the most represented category when it comes to creative reviews in the first half of this year, new research by COMvergence has found.

The pace of M&A deals by holding companies and consultancies for the first half of the year slowed considerably, compared to the last couple of years, according to a new analysis by COMvergence.

According to the new Global Advertising Ranking Report from COMvergence, the top 34 advertisers have a global media spend of more than $1 billion, representing 60 percent of the world’s top 175 advertisers.

With billings estimated at $18.5 billion, and an industry market share of 7.1%, Omnicom’s OMD is 2018’s top-ranked global media agency network.

COMvergence has recognized dentsu X India as the No.1 media agency on New Business Barometer 2018.

The agency tracker found that over that time (January 2017-December 2018) 62 advertisers placed both their creative and media accounts in review and that about one-third of them (20 clients) conducted a single search for an integrated agency partnership and selected creative and media agencies from the same holding company.

MediaCom has been named as the world’s most successful agency network of 2018 in the COMvergence New Business Barometer Full Year 2018 report.

Among the holding company-owned agencies, Publicis Groupe's Publicis creative network and Havas were both on top with the highest number of account wins in 2018 (six).

GroupM has consolidated its reporting and analysis of its commercial and business development data with global independent research firm COMvergence.

In the last two years now, there has been a slowdown in acquisitions, COMvergence notes in its report, adding that there were 87 in 2017, which was down from 116 in 2016.

Globally, COMvergence estimated that OMD collected $18.3 billion in billings for 2018 and has a market share of 6.3 percent. In the U.S., the network gained an estimated $7.9 billion in media buying billings and a market share of 6.1 percent, according to the study.

Publicis Groupe's Blue 449 was the top-performing media agency in first half 2018, according to a new COMvergence report provided to Marketing Dive. Blue 449's ranking was due to the company retaining its T-Mobile offline account, worth an estimated $940 million. However, Blue 449 lost T-Mobile's digital planning and buying business, estimated to be worth $50 million, to GroupM's Essence.

COMvergence released its report of the best-performing media agencies through the first half of 2018, revealing Publicis Groupe’s Blue 449 as the top shop in terms of new billings due to its retention of T- Mobile’s offline account, which is estimated to be worth $940 million.

The last 12 months have seen a steady flow of media budgets into independent agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. Of the £11 billion ($14.7 billion) of media billings tracked by research firm COMvergence across 21 markets including the U.S., Germany and India over the first nine months of the year, around £2.1 billion ($2.8 billion) was assigned to independent media agencies.

A former research and business development director at RECMA, Olivier Gauthier is now giving the media agency tracker some competition with a company of his own called COMvergence.