WPP's Wavemaker is the top global media agency network, according to the latest 2023 Global New Business Barometer by COMvergence.
Wavemaker had a total new business value of $US2.4 billion, including retentions, notably $1.7 billion of which Perfetti and Church & Dwight global, Huawei in China and Adobe in the US.
OMD ranked second, scoring the largest amount of new client wins ($1.7 billion) notably due to several sizeable global wins including Beiersdorf, Tchibo, Under Armour, Vans and Versuni.
Spark Foundry is third, following strong new business results in the US.
However, in terms of net new business excluding retentions, Spark Foundry shows the best score among the top 20 media agency networks, with an incremental total billing of +$1.3 billion; followed by OMD (+$970 million net) and Hearts & Science (+$870 million net).
At the group level, Publicis Media leads both rankings, in total (including retentions) as well as in net, scoring the largest totals of new client wins (+$5 billion) and retentions ($2.9 billion) – alongside with GroupM.
OMG ranks 2nd in both rankings with a total net new billings of +$2.85 billion.
Mediabrands takes the 3rd place in terms of net new billings with a total of +$2 billion (including US massive wins of Geico, Constellation Brands and Bristol Myers Squibb).
And when including retentions, GroupM ranks 3rd after successfully defending $2.9 billions of existing client billings in 2023.
In 2023, COMvergence assessed 4,380 media account moves and retentions (2,790 advertisers in total) across 48 countries totaling $35B (+9% vs. 2022).
Wavemaker, Mediaplus, Zenith and OMD have been the most successful agency networks to retain their client relationships, whilst Publicis Media scored the best retention rate among the Big 6 groups (61%).
The largest global and multi-country reviews resulted in $16 billion. The 20 largest reviews include:
About $4.2 billion (10%) of the big six groups.
Most of them being US top advertisers (BMS, BMW, Geico, LVMH, Pfizer, Signet Jewelers or Walgreens).
Of the total media spend reviewed in 2023, $5.2 billion (or 15%) went to independent agencies or in-house.
Horizon Media, the largest independent agency worldwide, contributed 30% of the total figure.
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