The Prolific North Top 50 Integrated Agencies 2014

Jump to the table

Welcome to the 2014 edition of the Prolific North Top 50 Integrated Agencies, the definitive list of the North’s leading advertising, marketing, integrated, sales and communications agencies. The initiative is published in association with Better Placed and is supported by Google and Mustard Research.

The Top 50 Integrated Agencies initiative complements Prolific North’s other definitive rankings of the region’s leading PR Agencies, Digital Agencies, Top 100 Brands and our annual people feature, Prolific Northerners.

For this year’s compilation, we have included live communications agencies along with agencies whose core activities span creative, advertising, marketing and sales promotion. Agencies which generate their income either entirely or overwhelmingly from digital activities are detailed separately in the Top 50 Digital Agencies.

Unlike the majority of agency rankings which rely on agencies submitting selected information about themselves or rankings which only include agencies who pay to be part of the selection process, the Prolific North ranking is wholly independent and is anchored on financial information taken from Companies House, supplemented by additional information provided by an overwhelming majority of the agencies contacted.

The ranking is predicated on a formula which examines a variety of factors including shareholder funds and/or balance sheets, turnover, pre-tax profits and headcount. Because roughly only one third of the agencies file full accounts (over £6.5m turnover), part of our agreement with companies providing confidential information is that we will not itemise or publicise their individual financials.

Agencies were not offered the option to be included or not.

This does mean that certain agencies may appear – usually – lower in the ranking than many observers might have expected but offering agencies the option to opt out rather than report on a one-off disappointing year would not enable us in turn to deliver what is widely acknowledged to be the definitive ranking of integrated agencies operating from or in the North of England. Warts and all!

In total, we have engaged almost 150 agencies and we would like to take this opportunity to thank all the agencies – whether they are included or not – for their time and attention in helping to create this unique financial snapshot of Northern marketing services excellence.

Once again we would like to thank Better Placed recruitment of Leeds and Manchester for its support of this initiative.

Prolific North will also be working with Better Placed and Barclays to deliver a follow-up event to this ranking next summer. A review of the last Top 50 Integrated Agencies event can be found here.

Mustard Research managed and delivered the research and we’d also like to thank the financial reporting company Fame BvD for providing a wealth of financial data to underpin the initiative. And finally Google itself which is as keen as we are to see more original high quality content on the web and whose growing Manchester office looks after the North – and indeed beyond.

Leeds, Manchester and Cheshire agencies dominate

The ranking is once again headed up by the Interpublic operation McCann Manchester (based in leafy Cheshire) followed by a new entry, the private-equity owned WRG, whose activities encompass ‘Live’ communications and increasingly content in its broadest sense.

Jaywing’s figures do not include those of its recent March 2014 acquisition of Epiphany (number two in the Top 50 Digital ranking).

Twelve of the top 20 are based primarily in Manchester or Cheshire, six in Leeds and two in Sheffield.

Outside the two largest conurbations, three Newcastle agencies and just two from Liverpool make the top 50 ranking along with three from Lancashire. Over a dozen of the agencies have international operations with six of the agencies being part of international networks.

Growth by acquisition is also increasingly occurring as the recovery continues with Jaywing, WRG, Hangar Seven, Home and Photolink Group all active while others such as Havas Lynx, Elmwood and SteinIAS are reaping the rewards of decisions taken elsewhere to invest respectively in their Manchester, Leeds and Bollington operations.

Other developments of note were the Fresh MBO, BJL establishing a new office in London and Turn Key opening an office in Los Angeles.

The Prolific North Top 50 Integrated Agencies 2014