New business for agencies continues to grow on a global scale, with September billings coming to $7.3bn – almost treble the amount at the same point last year, figures from Campaign’s Advertising intelligence show.
September's adspend grew by 18% compared with the previous month, continuing the trend of monthly improvements. In August billings went up by 59% from July.
With a year-on-year increase of 187%, adspend in September 2021 was significantly higher than the same point in 2020. Global billings climbed by almost $5bn ($4.8bn), with adspend reaching $7.3bn this year compared with $2.6bn in September last year.
In September of this year, 65% of all global billings were attributed to media reviews, equating to a total of $4.8bn. On the other side of the spectrum, creative reviews represented 35.2% of all adspend, with a total of $2.6bn.
At the same point in 2020, the adspend pot was a lot smaller and creative reviews dominated, with $1.5bn being spent in this area and only $1bn for media.
The number of account moves this September (648) was about the same level as in 2020 (600). The large increase in billings for 2021 therefore indicates that wins have been of a much higher value this year.
The top account win on the creative side belongs to Omnicom, which picked up a luxury car brand that turned out to be one of the most significant pitch results so far this year. Omnicom was up against Publicis Groupe for Mercedes-Benz and eventually secured the creative pitch for $800m.
Meanwhile, Publicis Group won three of the top five creative account moves in September. It secured tech company Huawei for $72.5m and TikTok and Samsung for $50m a piece.
As for media, MediaCom picked up large pharmaceutical company Bayer for $800m and Interpublic’s UM scooped up food delivery service Just Eat for $462m.
Looking at holding company performance, while WPP led the group in August with billings of $3.3bn, Omnicom is now ahead with billings of $2.9bn in September – no doubt thanks to its Mercedes-Benz win. WPP followed with $1.4bn.
The remainder of the big six each failed to make it past the $1bn threshold for global billings for September.
Campaign AI tracks agency new business around the world on a monthly basis. Find out more information here.
