OMD has again come out on top in global anaysis by independent research house COMvergence of 2021 media agency and group billings, including digital spend.
Total billings for the 12 months is estimated at $US23.8 billion, a growth rate of 11.7%.
GroupM’s Mindshare (including Neo) was second. Carat and MediaCom share the third spot.
The merger between Essence and MediaCom, announced in April, will be effective from this year.
At the group level, WPP’s GroupM remains a strong global leader with 15.7% industry market share and $US61.6 billion in global billings, up by 14.9% versus 2020
Then comes Publicis Media ($43B, +17.9%) and Omnicom Media Group ($38.1B, +13.8).
The 2021 total billings handled by the big six media agency networks as well as the major independent agencies reached $241 billion across 48 markets [excluding Brazil] representing 96% of the global media investments covered by COMvergence.
This is about ahlf (52%) of the global (net) media spend that COMvergence estimates at $393 billion in 2021 (vs. $343B in 2020; +14.5%).
The remaining 48% being handled by smaller independent media agencies, digital specialised agencies, Japanese and Chinese local advertising agencies, or in-house units operated by the advertisers (especially in the digital area).
The total media spend of $393B studied by COMvergence by region: North America (37%), APAC (34%), EMEA (27%) and Latin America (2%).
All the big six media agency networks have posted a positive global growth rate in 2021 vs. 2020, ranging from 0% for Spark Foundry to +42% for iProspect.
The average growth rate 2021 vs. 2020 among the 18 media agency networks is +16%. The same applies to the big six media agency groups, with growth rates ranging from +13.8% for OMG to +21% for Mediabrands.
Digital Media billings represent on average 43% of the media agency networks’ total billings (versus 39% in 2020, and 36% in 2019).
This rate varies from 34% for Initiative to 64% for Essence. Variations are less significant at a group level as the digital share ranges from 37% for Mediabrands to 44% for GroupM, OMG and dentsu international.
The total 2021 billings figures controlled by the big six media agency networks breaks out as follows: $116.7B in offline (against $107.4B in 2020, +9%) and $88.2B in digital (against $68.6B in 2020, +29%).
That means digital media billings have grown twice as much as the traditional media spends.
This was largely due to the pandemic which encouraged advertisers to shift their media investments from traditional to digital media channels, particularly in the retail and financial categories.
Looking at the independents, COMvergence assessed the 46 local media agencies or networks which together represent a total billings figure of $23.6B (or 10% of the total billings controlled by all agencies assessed globally).
Horizon Media (US) is by far the largest independent worldwide with a total 2021 billings figure of $8.9B, hence more than a third of the independent total billings.
Local Planet, the largest global network of local agencies, including Horizon Media, shows a total billing 2021 of $12.6B
(+25% vs. 2020).
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