M&C surges in billings league
By Tom O’Sullivan
M&C Saatchi has recorded a fourfold increase in its billings in the year to the end of September, while the agency the Saatchi brothers left behind slipped to fifth place in the rankings prepared for Marketing Week by Register-MEAL.
The figures are the first full yearly billings for M&C, which was formally launched in July 1995.
Spending from the likes of British Airways, Gallaher Tobacco and Mirror Group Newspapers, which all left the old agency, contributed to its 144m billings total.
Saatchi & Saatchi, which slipped from the top spot for the first time in six years when the last figures were released (MW May 24), has dropped a further place as billings tumbled by almost 30 per cent.
The other big winners in the year to the end of September were HHCL & Partners and Publicis, which added billings of almost 27m and 47m respectively.
High-profile campaigns for Tango and the Automobile Association account for much of HHCL’s billings growth. The Publicis success is largely due to existing clients, including Renault and Asda, increasing budgets.
Bartle Bogle Hegarty, GGT Advertising and D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles all suffered double-figure billings falls in the same period.
The total ad spend for the period increased by 8.7 per cent to 3.59bn.
