We did this ages in the past for London inventive companies in 1968 – the neolithic interval in adverts – so let’s take a look at 2003. Not that way back actually.
Right here’s the highest 20 Marketing campaign/Nielsen UK inventive companies (21 is attention-grabbing.)
TOP 21 CREATIVE AGENCIES
Billings March 2003/2002
£ £ % chg
1 1 Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO 348.69. 398.53 -12.50
2 2 McCann-Erickson Promoting 297.17. 294.97 0.74
3 6 Publicis 277.65. 235.75 17.77
4 3 Ogilvy & Mather 270.12. 280.49 -3.69
5 5 Lowe 265.54. 253.43 4.77
6 8 M&C Saatchi 262.09. 213.87 22.54
7 7 J. Walter Thompson 262.07. 235.02 11.50
8 4 Leo Burnett 231.45. 270.94 -14.57
9 10 Saatchi & Saatchi 221.72. 198.46 11.71
10 11 TBWA/London 191.33. 180.05 6.26
11 12 Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R 179.87. 174.64 2.99
12 13 BMP DDB 174.00. 173.98 0.01
13 9 Bates UK 170.58. 204.82 -16.71
14 15 WCRS 155.47. 142.64 8.98
15 16 Gray Worldwide 154.88. 142.32 8.82
16 14 Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper 154.75. 152.13 1.71
17 18 Bartle Bogle Hegarty 132.38. 102.85 28.70
18 19 Banks Hoggins O’Shea/FCB 88.18. 86.76 1.64
19 23 Companions BDDH 88.14. 47.20 86.71
20 22 Delaney Lund Knox Warren 73.23. 48.22 51.85
21 17 HHCL/Purple Cell 70.54. 109.21 -35.40
The highest 4 may very well be this 12 months’s high 4 (due out quickly) however thereafter you possibly can see the impact (or non-effect) of mergers. At 5 Lowe slightly misplaced its bearings because it fell sufferer to quite a few Interpublic maneuverings, shopping for, ultimately, fast-growing DLKW in 20 – though ending up smaller. Now it’s morphed into MullenLowe.
M&C Saatchi has yo-yoed over time (though it’s nonetheless with us.) WPP’s JWT, after all, has been subsumed into Wunderman Thompson and Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R (an initially profitable merger) is now VMLY&R.
Adam&eve was a breakaway from Y&R (one which led to an prolonged courtroom battle) and later labored its magic on Omnicom’s BMP DDB as adam&eveDDB, presently the UK’s largest company by billings.
Bates UK (what was left of the US Ted Bates for which the brothers coughed up a scarcely believably $500m) sort of withered and died, the Bates rump in APAC ending up in Johnny Hornby’s The&Partnership. WCRS (as Engine Artistic) is now within the strategy of becoming a member of digital group Subsequent 15, which completely no-one would have predicted in 2003.
Banks Hoggins O’Shea/FCB (Banks was the previous super-salesman chairman of Y&R, Hoggins and O’Shea two succesful creatives) labored for some time however IPG was a large number then and FCB subsequently purchased Inferno, which sort of labored too with out propelling the company into the massive league.
Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper turned Havas, completely no concept what turned of Companions BDDH, though it clearly had a stellar 2003. HHCL/Purple Cell in twenty first was a traditional instance of how to not do mergers. Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury had briefly dominated the roost as London’s most occurring inventive company (Tango, “Does precisely what it says on the tin” for Ronseal.)
HHCL had beforehand been annointed as Marketing campaign’s Nineties company of the last decade, though there had been dissenters. But it surely then joined Tim Bell’s Chime group and fell into the arms of Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP, an enormous minority shareholder in Chime. WPP had shaped Purple Cell, based mostly on on company that dealt with Fiat or Alfa Romeo (or probably each) into which a number of different companies the acquisitive Sorrell had picked up over time had been dumped. And that was the tip of HHCL.
The story doesn’t fairly finish there although. Chime then purchased VCCP, for what appeared an eye-watering £30m on the time, and VCCP subsequently prospered mightily. Now in non-public fairness possession, it is going to be within the high 4 when 2021’s company billings are introduced.
