New business in the global agency landscape continued to improve, with billings reaching $3.9bn in July, latest data from Campaign’s Advertising Intelligence, in partnership with R3, shows.
This is up from $3.6bn in the same period last year, although down from $4.2bn in July 2019. Billings in June were $3.5bn.
The volume of new business showed a slightly different trend: July saw 485 account moves, compared with 511 in 2020, suggesting businesses that changed hands in July last year were of a lower value, but it was a significant improvement on July 2019’s 347.
In the creative discipline, the biggest account move in July was a confidential one: VMLY&R picked up a $100m US pharmaceuticals and healthcare business.
There were two other major confidential moves, also in the pharmaceuticals and healthcare sector: VMLY&R scooped another US project worth $60m, while Code and Theory landed a global project also valued at $60m.
The remaining two of the top five were US moves: Carmichael Lynch won tax preparation company H&R Block’s $70m business and Wieden & Kennedy was handed the $50m account for gambling group FanDuel.
Meanwhile, Publicis Media scored the most lucrative win in media in July: the $600m US Walmart business.
Wavemaker and Mediahub had two wins apiece to make up the top five biggest media moves.
WPP’s Wavemaker picked up the $441.6m L’Oréal account covering Germany, Austria and Switzerland and the $300m global Beiersdorf planning brief.
The two victories for Interpublic’s Mediahub were related and both were in the US market and worth $100m each: Morgan Stanley and E*Trade, a trading platform that is a subsidiary of the former.
When it came to holding company performance, WPP was far ahead in billings terms in July, with $1.5bn attributed to it.
This was followed by Publicis Groupe at $718.2m and Omnicom at $443.7m. Interpublic ($354.2m) and Havas ($309m) rounded up the remaining top five, with the last of the big six, Dentsu, some way behind at $76m.
Campaign AI tracks agency new business around the world on a monthly basis. Find out more information here.
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