World Creative Rankings: advertising's top agencies, networks and holding companies revealed

Today, we begin releasing our findings, beginning with publication of the top 100 most-awarded ad agencies worldwide and the most-awarded holding companies and networks. Further results from the World Creative Rankings – including the top global creatives, advertisers and campaigns, as well as regional results for agencies – will be released on thedrum.com over the next two weeks.

Which agencies ranked highest in the World Creative Rankings?

The World Creative Rankings reveal which ad agencies, agency networks and holding companies had the best creative performance in 2020.

• Omnicom has topped the ranking for holding companies for the fourth year running, beating rivals WPP, Interpublic Group, Publicis Groupe and Dentsu to the top spot. Find out where each of the holding companies ranked in the complete list here.

• Also maintaining a winning streak, BBDO Worldwide came top of the Networks category, above peers such as Leo Burnett, Wieden + Kennedy and Publicis Worldwide. Discover how each of the networks ranked in the complete list here.

• Meanwhile Dentsu Tokyo topped the worldwide ad agencies rankings, while German agencies Scholz & Friends and Serviceplan Munich also performed particularly well.

• This year’s rankings saw a strong showing from agencies beyond the US and UK, with shops in Romania, Sweden and Hong Kong making the top 10.

• You can find the world's top 100 ad agencies ranked here.

What does the research cover?

• The World Creative Rankings are determined by collating and analyzing all the winning work from 13 international industry awards shows. This is down on last year's 21 due to some shows, like Cannes Lions, not going ahead as planned because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

• This year, that meant examining 1,768 campaigns from 1,295 clients working with 964 agencies composed of 387 chief creative officers, 483 executive creative directors, 1,319 creative directors, 1,061 copywriters and 1,222 art directors.

• Schemes analyzed in the research included Adfest, Epica, The Loeries, The Drum Digital Advertising Awards, The Drum Social Buzz Awards, Danish Creative Circle, Cresta Awards, D&AD, The One Show, Guldagget Sweden Awards, ADC USA, The Drum Design Awards and the New York Advertising Awards.

• Due the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, award entries hit a historic low in 2020 as both agencies and clients pulled back on spending. This year’s WCR sample is therefore lower than previous editions of the report, and some work that was awarded in 2019 was also successful in 2020 as some clients stuck with longer-term campaigns.

How are the rankings created?

• Each of the awards schemes is weighted according to whether it is a domestic, continental or global event, with a grading of points then allocated to its results.

• Points are given for Grand Prix/Best in Show, Gold, Silver, Bronze and shortlisted work, and in shows that do not adopt this prize structure scoring is adapted accordingly.

• For each piece of work, points are allocated to the campaign, the agency, the client and the individuals involved in the creative process. This allows us to not only rank top campaigns but also agencies, agency networks, holding companies, clients and talent.

• The Drum's rankings are reliant on the credits data supplied on each piece of submitted work. Therefore, we can only score the individuals and companies credited on winning entries.

If you’d like to get your hands on the full World Creative Rankings, order our PDF report now.