• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, March 15, 2023

Omnicom’s OMD was the top-ranked media agency in global new business results for full-year 2022 according to the just released New Business Barometer report from Agency research firm COMvergence. 

OMD’s net new business (billings) for the year totalled $2.36 billion. Losses, retentions, and new wins are factored into the total. The agency’s biggest win last year was L’Oreal’s award of its $1 billion U.S. media assignment. 

Publicis Media’s Zenith ranked second ($1.97 billion), helped by its retention of the $1 billion U.S. Verizon account. 

WPP’s Mindshare was third ($1.59 billion) with strong performance in the U.S. and China markets.    

At the group level,Publicis Media ranked first with net new business of $4.8 billion. Omnicom Media Group was second ($3.8 billion) and WPP’s GroupM was third ($3.2 billion). 

In 2022 COMvergence assessed an estimated 3,500 media reviews (of which 350 were multi-market/global pitches) across 47 countries totaling $32.2 billion, which was $8 billion less than the 2021 total. That’s about 15% of total global media agency billings ($210 billion) studied by COMvergence.    

Local pitches accounted for $21 billion of the total or about 66% versus 58% in 2021.

The average retention rate in 2022 was 35% (vs. 33% in 2021 and 30% in 2020).

Of the total media spend reviewed, $4.5 billion  (or 14%) went to independent agencies. 

This year, COMvergence unveiled its “Pitch Predictor” tool, that uses data analytics to forecast media accounts likely (or unlikely) to be reviewed over the next 18 months. Olivier Gauthier, COMvergence Founder/CEO says, “we anticipate the 2023 total reviewed spend figure will be similar to that of 2022, considering that $3.5 billion of media spend have already been reviewed while there is another $9 billion  currently in play.”