• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 2, 2012

If the ad industry’s major creative media awards are the measure, OMD remains the most creative media shop in the world. The Omnicom unit once again took top honors in the Gunn Report for Media’s annual round-up of the ad industry’s major media awards programs, marking the sixth consecutive year it has held the top spot.

OMD scored 176 points in Gunn’s grading system, which weights the performance of agencies in key industry media awards, such as MEDIA magazine’s Creative Media Awards.

WPP’s Mindshare unit ranked second with 161 points, followed by Publicis’ Starcom (142), and WPP’s MediaCom (87).

Interestingly, WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather unit (83) was the only “full-service” shop to make it on the top five list of the Gunn Report for Media this year, representing a marked shift in the impact of full-service shops in media creativity awards over the past few years (see table below).

Given the relative performance of its individual media agency networks, GroupM not surprisingly ranked as the most awarded holding company media unit with 513 points, followed by Omnicom Media Group (412), and Publicis’ VivaKi (343).

It wasn’t clear how much client rosters played a role in the relative performance of the media shops, but Gunn Editor Isabelle Musnik noted, “As advertisers recognize more and more the importance of media creativity, several are setting the pace for the future.”

As a result, Gunn recognized Coca-Cola Co. as the most creative media client of 2011 with a total of 62 points, followed by Volkswagen (29) and McDonald’s (25).

The U.S. remained the most creative media nation with 196 points, followed by Germany’s 120 and the U.K.’s 99.