Omnicom, WPP and Publicis shops vie for top spots in global media league

Mindshare rocketed up the rankings this month, thanks to international account moves including Unilever, while PHD maintained its position at the top of the new-business league. 

It means the top five spots in the league table now includes representation from WPP in two places, with Mindshare in second and Group M in fifth position. Similarly, Omnicom agencies occupy two spots: PHD in first and OMD in third. Publicis Groupe's Starcom is in fourth position, but Publicis Media has dropped out of the top five, down to eighth.

At the end of September, Unilever announced the result of its global media review, with rivals sharing duties. 

The FMCG giant appointed a roster of agencies, covering all six holding companies, across six geographies. 

WPP’s Mindshare was reappointed to the Unilever media account in the UK and US, as well as a portion of EMEA. This resulted in a total $2.3bn-worth of billings being handed to Mindshare, with $2.05bn new-business billings secured in the year to date, taking into account wins, retentions and losses.

Unilever has tended to use three main groups, WPP, Omnicom and Interpublic, for media-buying globally in the recent past but added Havas to the roster in 2021. Now, in a further shift, Publicis Groupe and Dentsu have also won parts of the account.

The full results of the review can be seen below:

Big European pitches made their mark in October, with both Kellanova and Henkel choosing agencies to manage their media accounts. 

Kellanova, which owns the Kellogg’s, Pringles, and Cheez-It brands, reappointed Carat as its European media agency, worth $100.5 million in billings. Despite this win, Carat did not move up in this month’s rankings, because it lost the Procter & Gamble account in Europe ($69.5 million), and Henkel in France ($39.7 million).

Other significant wins came from IPG’s Mediabrands, with its $409m US win of biotechnology giant Amgen boosting it to 15th position. IPG has created a bespoke team to look after the media planning and buying for the brand. 

This win caused incumbent Hearts & Science to drop out of the league, down from 10th last month.

Independent US agency PMG rose in leaps and bounds this month, entering the league in a rise from 184th last month. This follows two significant wins in October; both Petco and Crate and Barrel appointed PMG to manage their media accounts, worth $80m each. 

Campaign Red has produced the global media rankings, using direct findings from COMvergence, to calculate the overall media billings sum of each agency, taking into account both wins and losses for the period. As it stands, the formula is: (wins + retentions) - losses.

November refers to the publishing month of the rankings by Campaign. The data covers all 2024 account wins reported by COMvergence as of 4 November 2024. Next month’s rankings (December) will include accounts reported after this date. Reported figures may be revised in the future as more information becomes available. 

*The rankings have a focus on agencies, however, wins may be reported at a divisional level only or at a bespoke team level. For now, Campaign is keeping divisions and bespoke teams in the rankings as separate entities for those wins. This is to provide the most complete picture of new-business activity, in line with COMvergence reporting.