The Confusing World Of Advertising Agencies

The Confusing World of Ad Agencies
Do you get confused by the way advertising agencies are organized, with one agency owning another that, in turn, owns another bunch of agencies? How is the world of ad agencies organized? Who are the major players? And what is the currently dominant format? Let us explore some of these issues in this exercise.
First, understand that there are threemajor worldwide players in this industry- the Omnicom Group, the Interpublic Group, and the WPP Group. Between them they command the bulk of ad revenue globally. Each of these three groups, in turn, has three major global agencies each, in its portfolio. Let us now examine these players.
1. Visit the web site of the Omnicom Group. Look up the companies in this group's portfolio. How manytop agencies do they have and which ones are these?
2. Now visit the web site of another major global player in the communications industry, the Interpublic Group. What are the major agencies in Interpublic's portfolio?
3. Visit the web site of WPP Communications Group, one of the largest communications companies in the world. Go to their "Group Directory" section and examine thelist of advertising agencies this group owns. Which are the two largest agencies in this group?
4. However, it recently acquired a third company to get a trio like the other two large groups. Which other large agency did the WPP Group acquire recently?
5. Why, in your opinion, large communications groups like WPP or Omnicom prefer a three-agency model? Why don't they just mergethese agencies into a single corporate identity?
6. Even if groups like WPP, Omnicom, and Interpublic keep a three-agency structure, some clients still avoid using a group when one of its agencies works for a direct competitor. Find evidence for this statement by visiting the abovementioned sites. Examine their clients in the automotive industry.1.-
|Global Advertising Agency Networks |
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|[pic]Omnicom Group includes three of the top 10 global advertising agency networks: || |
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| ||[pic]BBDO Worldwide |
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|Headquartered in New York City, BBDO Worldwide is Omnicom's largest agency network with 345 offices in 76 countries. It ||develops and executes marketing and communications plans for some of the world's best known brands. BBDO's professional |
|commitment is captured in the agency's operating mantra, The Work. The Work. The Work. Quite simply, in the absence of great |
|work nothing else matters. It is this obsessive focus on the work which helped BBDO earn the distinction of being named ||"Global Agency of the Year" for 2001 by Ad Age and its sibling publication, Ad Age Global, for an unprecedented second year in|
|a row. Additionally, Adweek chose BBDO Worldwide as their "Global Agency of the Year," giving BBDO a clean sweep of this award|
|from the leading industry trade publications. |
|...