RAR Top 100 Marketing Services Companies 2009

The Drum is once again delighted to feature The RAR Top 100 Marketing Services Companies outside of London list and to toast those agencies featuring in it that are clearly doing very well.

As with previous years, this is much more than just a way to massage turnover egos. The primary criteria at the heart of this poll are quality and efficiency of how the business is actually run.

The pre-cursor for entry in to the Top 100 is that businesses must deliver a high-level of customer satisfaction. This measure is based on the RAR process of client references and companies must receive a high rating from a minimum of three clients references. The ratings are across pre-defined criteria, including client service, creativity and value for money. Only agencies which pass this quality threshold make it into the Recommended Agency Register and only these agencies are then invited to appear in the Top 100.

This year saw more than 250 marketing companies outside London invited to take part in this review and each one submitted turnover, profit and employee figures for the most recent and previous financial years.

A ranking process was then applied to these figures which saw us rank agencies in five dimensions:

• By turnover

• Percentage turnover growth

• Gross profit

• Gross profit growth

• Turnover per head of staff

Every company was ranked according to that particular criteria, with a ranking of 1 being the best and 250 being towards the bottom of the rankings. From all of these rankings an average rank was assigned to each company and that is where they finished on the final list – the top 100 making it into this feature.

This system works because as well as brute size, we also measure areas such as growth, gross profit and turnover per employee, key performance indicators in terms of profitability and efficiency.

As you can see from the table (in gallery on left of page), full service integrated agency Nexus/H from Kent stormed to the top once the rankings were completed.

Major growth has seen Nexus/H bound up our rankings from last year’s 53rd position to the heady height of first place. This comes on the back of the expansion of the team at Nexus/H and the growing of turnover by 24% and year-on-year gross profit by an enormous 76%.

Nexus/H, who offer a range of services including creative, advertising, design, media, strategic planning and buying, digital and production reported a turnover of £19m compared to a turnover of £15m in the previous financial year. Turnover per head for each of its 66 staff coming in at £290,000. Gross profit for the most recent financial year comes in at £1.2m – a massive jump from the previous year’s £700,000.

Once again SEO and online marketing company Bigmouthmedia has ranked highly in the table, retaining the second spot. Seeing its turnover grow from £39m last year to £46m this year with profit up by 26% to £10m, again an indication that the acquisition by Global Media has been a major financial success.

Another impressive rise up the table is Live & Breathe, the Leeds-based retail specialists whose success has recently seen it expand into London with new venture Live & Breathe London in conjunction with Hicklin Slade & Partners. The Leeds arm of the business has seen turnover increase from £6.8m to £8.2m, which has bolstered profits at the agency to £2.9m from £2.2m last year.

The top media planning and buying specialist on our list is MediaVest Manchester who, while dropping down the ranking from 4th to 10th, has still managed turnover growth by some £8 to £211m in the last 12 months. Gross profit at the agency has grown by over £1m to £7.2m.

Notable new entrants this year include APS, a print based marketing services provider, who are ranked as 3rd.

The will be the usual gripes that it’s impossible to compare all these different marketing disciplines. How can a design agency compare to an integrated agency or a media specialist to an online marketing consultancy? But as the traditional marketing silos disappear it’s only right that this study should look across the spectrum of creative and marketing services.

It’s important to recognise the primary purpose of the Top 100 is to highlight the marketing services companies, regardless of their discipline, which are performing well, handling good business, growing revenues and satisfying clients time and again: ultimately those companies who are stimulating growth in this difficult climate and creating more jobs and security for an industry under pressure.

As the only cross-discipline industry study of company performance, the Top 100 acts as a valuable barometer of the marketing sector based outside the capital and we’re pleased to report that the marketing services community remains strong despite challenging conditions.

SCOTLAND

Once again we see a Scottish contingency heading up the table, with both Bigmouthmedia and Tangible Group making the top 10, and Story and MediaVision not far off the mark at 12th and 13th.

Some of the biggest jumps in the table are also from Scottish agencies, with Avian leaping an impressive 48 places from 96th to 48th and Ten Alps MTD bounding up the rankings from 60th to 20th.

There has also been a raft of new entries from Scotland muscling their way into this year’s table, with User Vision, Material Marketing & Communications, Hampton Associates, Civic, O Street, Alienation Digital and 60W all appearing.

One quarter of the Top 100 is made up of Scottish companies, who between them have averaged an impressive 29% turnover growth and a massive 63% gross profit increase.

THE NORTH WEST

APS Group tops the North West this year, ahead of some strong competition in the region. The addition of print solutions company APS in this year’s table marks a broadening of the mix of marketing services companies recommended by RAR.

The region as a whole enjoyed a massive average turnover increase of £28m and turnover per head of £300,000, although this could be attributed to the many media independents based in the NW as well as the presence of groups like McCann Erickson Manchester and Amaze plc.

Also enjoying new entry status this year were Reading Room, cube 3 marketing ltd, Cuckoo Design, Citypress and Lavahouse Associates. Remarkable climbs were witnessed from The Market Creative Consultants (up 29 places from 67th to 38th), The Foundry Communications Ltd (who jumped from 37th to 14th), and IAS B2B Marketing (climbing from 45th to 23rd).

Meanwhile MediaCom North provided this year’s biggest turnover per head with a massive £1.9m.

YORKSHIRE

Flying the flag for Yorkshire is new entry Coolpink. The Leeds-based digital agency reported impressive growth this year with turnover up 67% and gross profit growing by 62%. New Yorkshire entrants to the table this year also include Twentysix, Front, Iris Associates Limited, MadeByPi, fuse8, Home James and Turn Key.

Making an impressive leap up the rankings is another Leeds digital stalwart, Numiko who jumped a massive 56 places from 95th to 39th. Average turnover growth for our Yorkshire marketing services companies was 14%, while a gross profit growth of 38% was also seen.

MIDLANDS

23red once again finished our top Midlands agency, but this year from the heady heights of 5th place rather than 16th. Disappointingly, only two other Midlands companies, Big Communications Group and Perspektiv Group, managed into the first 50, but with DiVersity, BrandFour Ltd, Rock Kitchen Harris and Bottletop all making the table for the first time there is hope that these positions will be improved upon next year.

SOUTH WEST

This years study sees an increase in entrants from The South West region. Breaching the top 10 is RLA Group – again another new entry – averaging an impressive £320,000 per head from its 40 staff.

Bray Leino is steadily climbing the rankings, up two place from 17th to 15th, no small part thanks to its massive turnover of £56m. The most notable climb in the South West, however, has been by Earl & Thompson Marketing who has leaped from 100 up to 58 in a year.

On average the region’s recommended companies grew turnover by 12% and gross profit by 13%.

OVERALL

It would round out the Top 100 nicely to stipulate which agency performed best in each discipline, but in this age of convergence, integration, merger and acquisition it is virtually impossible to pigeonhole any of the agencies appearing in our table. Most companies now have a digital output of one kind or other whether it be media, PR or technology driven. And recent activity by groups like Amaze and DMG is evidence of the growing importance of digital to companies outside London.

Many of the smaller independent agencies are also expanding their services across multiple communication platforms and one things for sure is that the rapid change witnessed in the last few years looks set to continue.