Ad Age Profiles Ad-Industry Jobs, Marketers, Media And Agencies For 2012

Ad Age’s Agency Report 2012 provides a comprehensive view of over 900 U.S. agencies and how they performed last year.

The report showed that even though the country was struggling to get out of the deep rut its economy was in and growth was sluggish, the ad industry continued to rise and all agency disciplines registered growth and progress. The industry registered a healthy growth of 7.9 percent over the preceding year and agency stocks stored to post-recession highs in March this year.

The report says that media agencies revenue grew by 11.4 percent, whilst its employment rate grew by 10.2 percent. Ad agencies revenue compared to media agencies was more subdued and was at 4.7 percent and the employment rate was 2.7 percent.

The report validates that U.S. ad-agencies, media agencies and other disciplines added 48,400 jobs since February 2010 and that if the current rate of growth continues it may reach its pre-recession high figures, which are currently 51,200 jobs short at the moment.

Of all the advertising avenues, the best performance was in digital advertising. The report shows that in 2011, U.S. agencies generated 30.3 percent of revenue from digital advertising. This was 2.3 percent higher than in 2010. Ad agencies through digital advertising earned a whopping $10.1 billion.

Of the total ad income, digital services accounted for more than half of the total revenue at CRM/direct-marketing agencies. Digital-speciality activities that included search marketing and social-media raked in $5.9 billion. The main difference is seen customer-relationship management were agencies, earned approximately $2.8 billion.

The balance of $1.4 billion, was distributed among the agency’s other digital disciplines.

Omnicom President-CEO John Wren told stock analysts in February: “We believe that 2011 was the year in which the historical distinction between so-called traditional and digital media disappeared, as we had always said it would. … Everything we do has a digital component to it.”

That the traditional mode of advertising is undergoing a sea-change can be gauged from the fact that, Omnicom last year changed the name of its principal operational division from “traditional media advertising” to simply “advertising.”

The report also goes on to name the stand-out performers in the industry naming Coca-Cola as the best marketer for the year, Wieden + Kennedy the agency of the year, for its Old Spice, Nike, Chrysler, Levi’s and other campaigns. Vogue was voted the magazine of the year.