CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- First the good news: The agency business is starting to see at least tepid growth. Analysts expect 2010 combined worldwide revenue for the top four agency companies to rise about 2% on an organic basis, factoring out currency shifts and acquisitions.
Now the bad news: Revenue for U.S. marketing-communications agencies -- advertising, marketing services, media, health care, public relations -- tumbled 7.5% to $28.4 billion in 2009, according to the Ad Age Agency Report.
That's the sharpest revenue decline in the 66 years Ad Age has produced the Agency Report.
The revenue decrease essentially matched a 7.8% drop in 2009 employment at U.S. advertising/marketing-services firms.
U.S. digital agencies eked out a 0.5% revenue gain in 2009, according to the Agency Report. Health-care agency revenue slipped 1.6%. Fortunes sank in every other agency sector.
Revenue down
Revenue for traditional ad agencies dropped 9.3%, mirroring an 8.9% decline last year in U.S. ad agency employment. Media agency revenue plunged 10.3% in a year when U.S. measured media spending (as tracked by WPP's Kantar Media) fell 12.3%.
Revenue for customer-relationship-management/direct-marketing agencies declined 7.4%, outperforming ad agencies as marketers put more emphasis on data-driven marketing.
Promotion-agency revenue tumbled 13.1%, depressed by lower spending on event marketing.
The Agency Report ranks 883 U.S. agencies, down from 912 agencies on last year's report. The drop-off partly reflects casualties of the downturn. Among agencies to close: Cliff Freeman & Partners, a former high-flying creative shop that shut its doors last October.
This is an industry in constant renewal. With economic prospects brightening, some high-profile agency execs -- including JWT's Ty Montague and Rosemarie Ryan; Saatchi & Saatchi's Gerry Graf; and Vigilante's Larry Woodard -- decamped this year to launch new ventures.
Among highlights from the report:
■ For the first time in the history of the Agency Report, the ranking's biggest agency is far removed from the clique and clack of Madison Avenue. The largest U.S. agency is Arkansas-based Acxiom, a major player in data-centric direct marketing and customer-relationship management. Acxiom Corp. isn't a new name; it's been in business since 1969. High-profile clients include Procter & Gamble Co., AT&T and Macy's.
■ Publicis Groupe, boosted by its acquisition of digital powerhouse Razorfish, moved past Interpublic Group of Cos. to become the world's third-largest agency company, behind WPP and Omnicom Group.
■ Dentsu ranked as the world's largest consolidated agency network. Dentsu's network includes New York agencies 360i (acquired in January 2010) and McGarryBowen.
■ Omnicom's Fleishman-Hillard ranked as the nation's largest PR agency, based on Ad Age revenue estimates. Edelman scored as the world's largest PR agency. This marks the first PR agency ranking published by Ad Age since 2002.
Publicly held agency companies sometimes prefer not to reveal revenue for individual agencies, so revenue figures for those agencies and some independent shops are based on Ad Age DataCenter estimates. Ad Age revised some 2008 estimates, mainly to reconcile revenue with figures that agency firms disclose.
U.S. digital agencies eked out a 0.5% revenue gain in 2009, according to the Agency Report. Health-care agency revenue slipped 1.6%. Fortunes sank in every other agency sector.
Revenue down
Revenue for traditional ad agencies dropped 9.3%, mirroring an 8.9% decline last year in U.S. ad agency employment. Media agency revenue plunged 10.3% in a year when U.S. measured media spending (as tracked by WPP's Kantar Media) fell 12.3%.
Revenue for customer-relationship-management/direct-marketing agencies declined 7.4%, outperforming ad agencies as marketers put more emphasis on data-driven marketing.
Promotion-agency revenue tumbled 13.1%, depressed by lower spending on event marketing.
The Agency Report ranks 883 U.S. agencies, down from 912 agencies on last year's report. The drop-off partly reflects casualties of the downturn. Among agencies to close: Cliff Freeman & Partners, a former high-flying creative shop that shut its doors last October.
This is an industry in constant renewal. With economic prospects brightening, some high-profile agency execs -- including JWT's Ty Montague and Rosemarie Ryan; Saatchi & Saatchi's Gerry Graf; and Vigilante's Larry Woodard -- decamped this year to launch new ventures.
Among highlights from the report:
■ For the first time in the history of the Agency Report, the ranking's biggest agency is far removed from the clique and clack of Madison Avenue. The largest U.S. agency is Arkansas-based Acxiom, a major player in data-centric direct marketing and customer-relationship management. Acxiom Corp. isn't a new name; it's been in business since 1969. High-profile clients include Procter & Gamble Co., AT&T and Macy's.
■ Publicis Groupe, boosted by its acquisition of digital powerhouse Razorfish, moved past Interpublic Group of Cos. to become the world's third-largest agency company, behind WPP and Omnicom Group.
■ Dentsu ranked as the world's largest consolidated agency network. Dentsu's network includes New York agencies 360i (acquired in January 2010) and McGarryBowen.
■ Omnicom's Fleishman-Hillard ranked as the nation's largest PR agency, based on Ad Age revenue estimates. Edelman scored as the world's largest PR agency. This marks the first PR agency ranking published by Ad Age since 2002.
Publicly held agency companies sometimes prefer not to reveal revenue for individual agencies, so revenue figures for those agencies and some independent shops are based on Ad Age DataCenter estimates. Ad Age revised some 2008 estimates, mainly to reconcile revenue with figures that agency firms disclose.
Source: http://www.adage.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment