Category Archives: Issue 2011 September

Acxiom is a leading IT services company which specialises in customer relationship technology and information management. It offers a broad range of CRM-related marketing services including direct mail and digital marketing, as well as more traditional technology consulting and outsourcing. Acxiom has a global footprint, with offices in Europe and Asia as well as the US. Scott Howe replaced John Meyer as CEO in 2011. Worldwide revenues were almost $1.2bn in fiscal 2011. Advertising Age estimated revenues from marketing services of $785m.
Epsilon is a leading US-based direct mail and database marketing specialist. Primarily the company helps clients manage and maximise the value of their customer contacts through data analysis and direct response services. Its main marketing services arm operates under the name Purple@Epsilon. In 2011, the group agreed to acquire rival Aspen Marketing Services for $345m. Epsilon is one of the main US subsidiaries of Alliance Data, a major provider of outsourced payment processing, credit and billing services.

Draftfcb was created in 2006 from the merger by Interpublic of two of its subsidiaries: direct marketing specialist Draft Worldwide and famed creative advertising network FCB. The resulting business is a fully integrated worldwide marketing services giant offering a broad range of disciplines from traditional creative to direct, digital and sales promotion. Draft had for several years been one of Interpublic's most consistently successful brands, and the merger was designed to provide added strength to FCB, which while a strong performer in the US, remained weak outside its home market. However, the combined business got off to a terrible start when it was fired from the Wal-Mart account at the end of 2006 after just three months. Despite that shaky debut, Draftfcb has proven to be one of Interpublic's more profitable subsidiaries, although the loss of the SC Johnson account in 2011 will leave something of a dent on future performance.

McCann Erickson is the biggest worldwide agency network by global footprint. Although the main agency specialises in traditional advertising, it also offers a broad range of other marketing services under the banner of the McCann Worldgroup, which coordinates input from several other Interpublic-owned agencies including Momentum Worldwide, Futurebrand and Weber Shandwick. A dynamic force during the 1990s, McCann stumbled badly at the beginning of the following decade, distracted by accounting irregularities and management problems. The loss of the prestigious Coke Classic account in several important markets was a severe blow. Since then, however, McCann has recovered its composure and has steadily re-strengthened its client portfolio. Yet despite its worldwide presence, it is always under threat from more nimble competitors in the key US market, and has had to fight hard to keep hold of key clients like Verizon, Microsoft and General Motors.

BBDO is one of the three main networks in Omnicom's portfolio. The group has long held a commanding position as one of the world's most prestigious networks, with 287 offices in 79 countries. It has ranked for several years as one of the top two advertising agencies in the US, and its international subsidiaries – for example the UK's AMV BBDO, Germany's BBDO Gruppe and Australia's Clemenger BBDO – are also among the leaders in their local markets. The agency is widely admired for the quality of its creative work, and regularly features among the winners in advertising festivals around the globe. Between 1920 and the late 1940s, the guiding light for what was then Batten Barton Durstine & Osborn, was Bruce Barton, widely considered to be one of the greatest admen of his era.

Leo Burnett is among the world's best-known agency brands, responsible for creating what has become known as the "Chicago School" of advertising, which made a virtue of simplicity and clarity, and was most strongly defined by the use of brand mascots, fictional characters who were used to personify individual brands. Uncle Ben, the Jolly Green Giant, Tony the Tiger, the Pillsbury Dough-Boy and the Marlboro Man were all Burnett inventions. The agency capped the 1990s with a showstopping deal which combined the forces of three major agency groups. In 1999, Burnett's sealed a deal with D'Arcy parent MacManus, stealing that business from under Interpublic's nose for $1bn; then sold a 20% stake in the combined group to Japanese giant Dentsu for $400m to create one of the world's biggest marketing groups, named Bcom3. The final twist came in 2002 with capture of Bcom3 by Publicis. In 2007, Leo Burnett merged with below-the-line unit Arc Worldwide under a single management team, although it continues to use both brands.

Rapp – known as Rapp Collins until a rebranding in 2008 – is one of the world's largest direct marketing agencies, formed originally from an amalgam of businesses which came together in the 1986 merger of BBDO, DDB and Needham Harper to form Omnicom. Original founders Stan Rapp and Tom Collins are generally credited with creating the format of what we now understand as direct marketing. The agency is a specialist in direct marketing and customer management, but also offers a variety of other below-the-line services. In recent years it has moved strongly into digital customer relationship management and related services, bolstering its offering through the acquisition of a string of interactive agencies around the globe.

JWT is now the official name for J Walter Thompson, one of the most famous brands in advertising history. It was arguably the world's first advertising agency, in the modern sense of the word, although it now prefers the term global brand communications. Owned since 1987 by WPP, the company took steps to brighten up its image in 2005, dropping the old name in favour of its already well used abbreviation JWT and a new logo. Under any name, the agency has an enormous geographical spread, with some 200 offices in 90 countries. In most cases, the group operates as a fully integrated agency offering a wide variety of other marketing services disciplines beyond advertising. A handful of separately branded subsidiary units remain, but the biggest of these, marketing services network RMG:Connect, was merged into the main agency at the end of 2009. See also JWT UK and JWT Australia.

Sapient is a leading interactive design and consultancy agency with a wide-ranging global footprint. Still independent and publicly quoted on the NASDAQ exchange, the company is headquartered in the US, where it operates 12 offices scattered across the country. Until 2009, it was mostly widely known for its Sapient Interactive division. In 2009 it acquired highly regarded creative advertising network Nitro, and merged those two businesses to form what is now SapientNitro, an integrated advertising and digital agency positioned as a creative micro-network along similar lines to Bartle Bogle Hegarty or Wieden & Kennedy, but with a far more developed digital offering.

Edelman is one of the world's top three public relations agencies, and arguably the most widely admired. Still owned and run by its founding family in a sector dominated by subsidiaries of multinational marketing groups, it swept the board in 2009 and 2010 for industry accolades, named Agency of the Year by multiple trade publications and organisations and as Agency of the Decade by Ad Age and industry monitor The Homes Report. Although originally known mainly for consumer and healthcare PR, it has established a much envied reputation for excellence in corporate PR and public affairs since 2000, and was one of the pioneers in word-of-mouth marketing and social media. Although the US is still its core market, it has also established an expansive global network since the end of the 1990s, becoming one of the leading agencies in Europe and the Asia Pacific region. Founder Daniel Edelman remains chairman; his son Richard Edelman is president & CEO. Revenues for the year to July 2010 were $495m, of which around two-thirds is generated in the US.