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WARC has today released the results of its first-ever ‘Best of the Best’ global index of excellence, to showcase the best all-round agencies and brands by aggregating results from across all three recently released WARC Rankings – Creative 100, Effective 100 and Media 100.
The WARC Rankings, successor to the Gunn Report and WARC 100, are annual rankings providing a global benchmark for campaign, agency, network, holding company, brand and advertisers’ success.
The Best of the Best 2019 has been calculated by combining the 2018 results of the most prestigious and rigorous global and regional creative, effectiveness and media awards shows and competitions as determined by the industry following a worldwide survey and consultation.
David Tiltman, Head of Content, WARC, says: “The culmination of the WARC Rankings is the newly launched ‘Best of the Best’. This identifies the best-performing companies across our three benchmarks of marketing excellence – creativity, effectiveness and media excellence.”
BBDO New York and BBDO Worldwide are the best agency and network respectively across the WARC Rankings. BBDO New York performed strongly in both creativity and effectiveness, and its parent network, BBDO Worldwide, had a total of 59 offices contribute to its winning network total.
Commenting on their success, Andrew Robertson, President and CEO, BBDO Worldwide, says: “‘The ‘Best of the Best.’ It literally can’t get better than that when it comes to public recognition of BBDO Worldwide. I am proud of, and grateful to, our clients and all of the people in our agencies who made this happen. Having four agencies from four regions all ranked in the Top Ten, including BBDO New York at No.1, demonstrates the breadth of talent in the network.”
Omnicom Group tops the Best of the Best holding company ranking. BBDO Worldwide’s strong performance was supported by top 10 ranks for DDB Worldwide, PHD Worldwide and TBWA Worldwide.
“It’s a proud moment to see Omnicom and its agencies topping the ‘Best of the Best’ list as the #1 network, #1 and #2 agency, and #1 holding company,” said John Wren, Chairman and CEO of Omnicom Group. “Employees across the globe come to work every day ready to deliver world-class services for our clients, and that shines through as they’re recognized by WARC for their creativity, marketing effectiveness and media excellence. Congratulations to all our people who can take great pride in these accomplishments.”
Burger King tops the Best of the Best brands, with placings in the top 50 in all three rankings, and in first place in the Creative 100. The retail brand had 23 award-winning campaigns across all three rankings.
Procter & Gamble topped the advertiser ranking by less than a point, as the two leading FMCG players continue to produce highly successful work, particularly in effectiveness and media. However, neither had a brand in the top 10. Instead, both had multiple successful brands throughout the depth of the rankings.
The world’s top 10 agencies across the WARC Rankings
Rank | Agency | Location | Points |
1 | BBDO | New York, USA | 489.8 |
2 | adam&eveDDB | London, UK | 466.7 |
3 | McCann | New York, USA | 413.1 |
4 | AMV BBDO | London, UK | 410.8 |
5 | MediaCom | London, UK | 390.8 |
6 | Colenso BBDO | Auckland, New Zealand | 351.8 |
7 | LOLA MullenLowe | Madrid, Spain | 343.1 |
8 | McCann | London, UK | 316.6 |
9 | Host/Havas | Sydney, Australia | 288.3 |
10 | AlmapBBDO | São Paulo, Brazil | 281.0 |
The world’s top 10 agency networks across the WARC Rankings
Rank | Network | Points |
1 | BBDO Worldwide | 3207.1 |
2 | McCann Worldgroup | 2912.0 |
3 | Ogilvy | 2006.7 |
4 | DDB Worldwide | 1746.7 |
5 | MediaCom | 1511.2 |
6 | IPG Mediabrands | 1430.9 |
7 | PHD Worldwide | 1395.2 |
8 | TBWA Worldwide | 1315.0 |
9 | Dentsu Aegis Network | 1298.2 |
10 | Mindshare Worldwide | 1174.2 |
The world’s top 10 agency holding companies across the WARC Rankings
Rank | Network | Points |
1 | Omnicom Group | 8926.6 |
2 | WPP | 8556.4 |
3 | Interpublic Group | 5772.1 |
4 | Publicis Groupe | 2714.6 |
5 | Dentsu | 1398.5 |
6 | Havas Group | 1151.5 |
7 | Accenture | 260.3 |
8 | Hakuhodo DY Group | 259.3 |
9 | MDC Partners | 189.8 |
10 | BlueFocus | 152.7 |
The world’s top 10 brands across the WARC Rankings
Rank | Network | Points |
1 | Burger King | 593.2 |
2 | McDonald’s | 465.0 |
3 | IKEA | 339.0 |
4 | Coca-Cola | 327.9 |
5 | Pedigree | 321.0 |
6 | KFC | 299.6 |
7 | Greenpeace | 260.4 |
8 | Skittles | 260.3 |
9 | Palau Legacy Project | 258.0 |
10 | Nike | 257.8 |
The world’s top 10 advertisers across the WARC Rankings
Rank | Network | Points |
1 | Procter & Gamble | 969.8 |
2 | Unilever | 969.1 |
3 | Mars | 963.3 |
4 | Restaurant Brands International | 593.2 |
5 | Anheuser-Busch InBev | 567.6 |
6 | Volkswagen Group | 553.8 |
7 | McDonald’s | 573.5 |
8 | The Coca-Cola Company | 469.5 |
9 | Heineken | 382.3 |
10 | PepsiCo | 347.3 |
The Best of the Best ranking aggregates points across the three rankings. To ensure performance in each ranking has equal weight in the Best of the Best tables, a weighting for the effectiveness and media rankings has been calculated that inflates their scores versus the creative rankings. For this reason, points in the Best of the Best are not simply the total of the three individual rankings.
An annual survey will be held to ensure that the WARC Rankings remain independent and the competitions tracked reflect the opinion of the industry.
Subscription to the WARC Rankings site, which includes supporting data and information, also provides access to a searchable library of more than 5,000 award-winning campaigns. WARC Rankings is an additional product available either stand-alone or as an add-on to WARC.com subscribers. Existing Gunn Report subscribers have access to the WARC Rankings and the historic Gunn Report case studies as part of their current subscription. The Gunn Report archive site is available at https://archive.gunnreport.com
About WARC – advertising evidence, insights and best practice
WARC provides the latest evidence, expertise and guidance to make marketers more effective. WARC’s mission is to save the world from ineffective marketing.
WARC’s clients include the world’s largest brands, advertising and media agencies, media owners, research companies and universities. They rely on WARC for rigorous, unbiased information and advice on almost any advertising and marketing issue, which WARC delivers via best practice guides, case studies, research papers, special reports and advertising trend data, as well as via webinars, awards, events and advisory services.
WARC collaborates with more than 50 respected industry organisations globally including: The Advertising Research Foundation, Cannes Lions, Effie Worldwide, Association of National Advertisers, ESOMAR, 4A’s, IPA and DMA.
WARC was founded in 1985, and has offices in the UK, US and Singapore. In July 2018, WARC became part of Ascential plc, the global specialist information company.
About Ascential
Ascential is a specialist, global information company that helps the world’s most ambitious businesses win in the digital economy. Our information, insights, connections, data and digital tools solve customer problems in three disciplines:
- Product Design via global trend forecasting service WGSN;
- Marketing via global benchmark for creative excellence and effectiveness Cannes Lions and WARC, and strategic advisory firm MediaLink; and
- Sales via ecommerce-driven data, insights and advisory service Edge by Ascential, leading managed services provider for Amazon Flywheel Digital, the world’s premier payments and Fin Tech congress Money20/20, global retail industry summit World Retail Congress and retail news outlet Retail Week.
Ascential also powers political, construction and environmental intelligence brands DeHavilland, Glenigan and Groundsure.
