Top media shops bill over £600m

New Media Age

27/09/2007

The UK's top 15 media agencies in this year's NMA Top 100 Interactive Agencies guide nearly doubled their combined billings to £602m - an increase of £265m - over last year.

Aegis's digital network Isobar achieved triple figures in this year's guide, with billings of £101m, up from £57m last year. It has topped NMA's ranking of digital media agencies for four years in a row.

i-level, the UK's leading independent media agency, grew its billings from £52m to £74m but dropped one place behind WPP-owned Media.com, which came second in the rankings. Combined, the top three media agencies accounted for over £250m of spend last year.

Total turnover (excluding managed services and hosting) for marketing, design & build and technical agencies in the NMA Top 100 2007 was just under £567m, compared to £497m last year, a rise of 14 percent.

Top of the table is Sapient, which this year pushed LBi into second place. Paul English, Sapient Interactive's European director, said, "We have a group of key, experienced staff from major agencies as a top-flight, senior interactive marketing group. That comes to bear in the type of pitches we're invited to and clients we're talking to."

The top 100 agencies now employ 8,543 staff, compared to 6,671 last year. But shortages are still endemic, with agencies reporting more than 650 vacancies.

For the first time, agencies were asked to report on their gender split and this has been revealed as being 61 percent male, compared to the 2006 IPA Census in which just over 50 percent of agency employees were male.

For the fourth year running, Glue London was the agency most respected by its peers, although CEO Mark Cridge was pipped by Profero co-founder Wayne Arnold for the greatest contribution award.