PHD extends lead in final 2024 global new-business rankings

Omnicom’s PHD maintained its top spot in the final 2024 global media league after earning around $3.6 billion in net new-business billings over the 12-month period. 

The agency secured more than double the billings of its closest rival, Publicis Media (almost $1.8 billion) which moved from third to second place in the final rankings by Campaign Red that take into account wins, retentions and losses tracked by COMvergence.

PHD extended its lead ahead of the rest of pack compared with the previous rankings when its closest competitor at that time, Mindshare, had attained $2.1 billion in net new-business billings.

However, in the final table for the year, Mindshare moved down to third place after the WPP shop chalked up more than $1.7 billion in net billings. In December, the agency lost the global $369.1 million account for Volvo to Interpublic's Initiative.

OMD maintained its fourth position, with just over $1.7 billion in new-busines billings, while GroupM switched places with Omnicom Media Group and moved up from sixth into fifth position. It won the $300 million North American account of J&J Innovative Medicine in December, taking over from IPG shop UM, and bringing its net billings for the year to around $1.6 billion.

Indie agency PMG was the only new agency to make it into the final league of the month, due to newly-reported wins from earlier in the year.

One other indie agency made the final league of 2024: Maxlead took 20th position, thanks to its Netherlands win of Lidl in October, worth $81.8 million, following a pitch between five media agencies.

2024 global media new-business league ($m)

When analysing the top four agencies' cumulative billings over the months of 2024, PHD’s jump in June is marked. In June, the shop retained the global Volkswagen Group account, with billings worth $2.24 billion.

Meanwhile, Mindshare’s net billings shot up in September, after it expanded its remit with Unilever, covering the US, the UK, and portions of EMEA and APAC. The billings totalled $2.33 billion. Despite this, Mindshare’s net billings that month were $1.64 billion, due to losses earlier in the year. Of particular note was Mindshare’s loss of the China account for Yum! Brands, worth $373.8 million, to Spark Foundry in June.

Publicis Media* maintained the most consistent increase of net billings throughout the year out of the top four. Its biggest account win was MediaMarktSaturn in June, worth $387.2 million.

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.

It should be noted that these are provisional 2024 year end figures from COMvergence and are subject to revisions as the data are finalised later on in the year.

*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.