Top 10 Advertising Agencies in the World

For brands, advertising agencies in the world plays a crucial role. It is quite important for an organization who wants to grow his business.

If organisations haven’t employed some professional agencies to take care of their marketing strategies, they end up being struggling with the promotion of the product.

Almost all the advertising agencies have some kind of uniqueness which strengthens the target audience’s memory. It also makes them memorable to remember a particular product.

Before reading about top advertising agencies, we should understand the very basic concept of advertising.

Advertising is – finding the ideal customer and this calculation is done on the demographic standards such as – Gender, Age, Education level, Income level and zip code etc.

True Advertising is based on finding the ideal customer

Advertising is a unique method. It’s a tactic to promote a product, service, promotional content, or messages in the form of advertisements.

The goal of this highly creative work is to reach people according to their need and interest.

In addition to this, we can say Advertising is an unique arena in itself. To understand it you need to go for an advanced Advertising course.

But before that start thinking about advertising that you know well and you love to interact with them.

When it comes to top class advertising agencies. They are dedicated to its clients for creating and planning advertisements.

These agencies handle the overall procedure of marketing, branding, promotion as well as sales for its clients.

We all know that an advanced level customer prefers advertising from reputed names they know. 

There are so many advertising sites in the world, out of which I have made a list of 10 agencies. These agencies has ruled the world of advertising for the longest time and serving till now.

You may not agree with it. Here you may think some brands are missing, or some don’t deserve to be on the list.

Let’s have a look over them in detail.

Top 10 Advertising Agencies in the World

1. Ogilvy & Mather

Ogilvy & Mather is a New York City-based advertising, marketing, and public relations agency. It started as a London advertising agency founded in 1850 by Edmund Mather. In 1964 it became known as Ogilvy & Mather after merging with a New York City agency that was founded in 1948 by David Ogilvy.

Having presence in India since 1928, this agency operates its offices in all major cities.

It is part of the WPP Group, which is by revenue one of the largest marketing and communications companies in the world.

O&M earned a classic reputation through its work and performance in the marketplace.

Website: www.ogilvy.com

Awards & achievements

O&M won three medals “Gold, silver and bronze” at Asian Brand Marketing awards 2004 held in Hong-Kong:

• The agency grabbed Gold medal for Best Insight for Goli ke Humjoli campaign.
• Silver medal for Most effective PR for Cadbury crisis management.
• Bronze medal for Best long-term marketing for Fevicol.

Clients: Amazon, Coca-Cola, IBM Cloud, Perrier, Dove, American Express

Notable ad campaigns by Ogilvy

Dove (Empowering Idents)

Honda (Stay Home)

Cadbury (Twins)

UNEP (Forced Migration)

ASRA (Better Futura)

2. MullenLowe U.S. (We are different kind of beast)

MullenLowe U.S. is the best American advertising agency around and was founded in 1970 by Jim Mullen in Boston. Because of its capability of early adaptation of social media, it has been successful in landing the “most influential” client in the century. It is excellent in content creation, brand planning, user experience designing, performance analytics, studying the influence of digital and technology production.

Mullen is one of the top 10 innovative marketing and advertising companies.

It is 2017 global creative pr agency of the year. Also MullenLowe Mediahub partnered with Netflix on two incredible campaigns, ‘Earn Your Power’ and ‘Unblockable ads”. Both of these campaigns have been recognized as two of Adweek’s Best Media Plans for 2017.

Website: https://us.mullenlowe.com

Awards & achievements

• Mullenlowe Lintas group India won the title of “Creative agency of the year” at the campaign South Asia agency of the year 2016 awards held on November 30, 2016 in Mumbai.
• Moreover it was ironically announced as the “most awarded agency” in India in 2015.

Clients: Google as well as others like JetBlue, General motors, Zappos, Acura, century, 4Seasons, Jetblue, ask.com.

Notable Campaigns by MullenLowe U.S.

Vivo (#snapdragon)

Etihad (Get to the US quicker)

Magnum (Game of Spoons)

3. McCann Worldgroup

Next in the row is McCann (formerly McCann Erickson) a global advertising agency network, with offices in 120 countries. It is a subsidiary of the Interpublic Group of Companies, one of the four large holding companies in the advertising industry.

McCann Worldgroup is a leading global marketing services company comprising:

• MRM//McCann (digital marketing/relationship management)
• McCann (advertising)
• Momentum Worldwide (total brand experience)
• McCann Health (professional/dtc communications)
• CRAFT (global adaptation and production)
• UM (media management)
• Weber Shandwick (public relations)
• FutureBrand (consulting/design)
• PMK-BNC (entertainment/brand/popular culture)

McCann was the first agency to diversify into domains other than marketing.

Website: https://www.mccannworldgroup.com/

Awards & achievements

• McCann worldgroup has achieved most of the Cannes awards.
• It has been recognized as the most awarded agency in North-America.
• McCann in New York and Mumbai are the two out of four agencies to receive an ACT responsible Cannes tribute 2017 for their outstanding work.

Clients: L’OREAL, TV Doctors of America, MasterCard, Cigna, Nespresso

Notable Campaigns by McCann

L’Oreal Paris (The Non Issue)

World For All Animals

Yatra (Budget Travels)

4. Publicis Groupe

It was founded in 1926 in France which is considered as the oldest as well as largest marketing & advertising companies in the world. Publicis Groupe is owned by Maurice Levy including Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett. Recently it took full control of BBH and acquired a long string of digital specialists including Digitas, Razorfish, and Sapient.

In 2016 it split its media networks i.e. Starcom MediaVest and ZenithOptimedia into four separate units.

It provides marketing, communication, and digital transformation services, POS, video editing etc.

Website: http://www.publicisna.com/

Awards & achievements

• Publicis Singapore won Gold for one in a million entry for P&G India.
• Publicis Romania was awarded as the “Agency of the year 23rd Golden Drum” etc.

Clients: Citi, Coca-Cola, Garnier, Rogers, Lobsterd, Vicks, American Airlines etc.

Notable ad campaigns by Publicis Groupe

Toyota (Happy Valentines)

Burger King (Lockdown whopper)

Nescafe (The message)

Kit Kat (Even technology needs a break)

Coca-cola (Feel it)

5. Dentsu (Japan)

There is no advertising agency that dominates its home market as completely as Dentsu of Japan. It is a multinational media and digital communications who have its office in London (U.K). Dentsu was founded by Jerry Bhulman and controls around 30% of all that country’s mass media advertising.

This one is currently the largest advertising agency and fifth largest agency network in terms of worldwide which is made of 10 global network brands.

Recently its profile outside Asia was not very known but Dentsu began to change that imbalance with a few carefully selected acquisitions. Its first big breakthrough came with the purchase of New York agency McGarry Bowen. That was topped by the bolt of Ages which owns the global media networks of Carat and Vizeum.

Website: www.dentsu.com

Awards & achievements

• Dentsu won many International awards such as – Cannes Lions, One show, CLIO, ADFEST Lotus and Spikes Asia etc.

Clients: It includes Airtel, Flipkart, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Bacardi, Red Bull.

Notable ad campaigns by Dentsu

Skoda (breaks check)

Tata Harrier (Language of humanity)

Canon (Be the revolution)

Subway (Back seat)

Nike (Force)

6. Havas

Here we have Havas that is now controlled by French media group Vivendi and is an American Advertising agency founded in 1991. It controls advertising network Havas Worldwide (known as Euro RSCG until 2012). And is the fifth largest communications group in the world. Also, a small collection of other agencies which are known as Arnold Worldwide.

It has made up around 316 offices located in 75 different countries.

The former flagship of Euro RSCG in Paris has also established a separate identity under the name BETC. Havas worldwide works with the largest 78 out of 100 global advertisers.

Website: http://havas.com/

Awards & achievements

• Havas won Gold and one Bronze at Kinsale shark advertising festival for best campaign and CRAFT.

Clients: Lacoste, IBM, Air France, The Colombian National Road Safety Agency, Camel cigarettes, Unilever etc.

Notable ad campaigns by Havas

Infinity music

Hyundai (When we get out)

Durex (Feel your way to pleasure)

Vanish (Love your whites for longer)

7. Grey Global (Adverting Giant)

Grey global was founded in 1917 by an 18-year-old Lawrence Valenstine in an art studio. Later it acquired all the advertising networks. Its headquarter is situated in New York and has 432 offices in 96 countries worldwide. It was the most innovative company in 2015 as it has extended its services in advertising, public relations, public brand development and interactive marketing.

It has various subsidiaries: Grey, G2, GHG, GCI Group, MediaCom Worldwide, Alliance, GWHIZ, and WING.

Website: http://grey.com

Awards and achievements

• Grey won 10 Cannes lions, an Addy, Clio and Emmy award.
• Its European network, Grey EMEA won 26 Euro EFFIE awards too.

Powerhouse of Grey Group: Advil, Canon, Cover Girl, and Proctor & Gamble

Notable ad campaigns by Grey Global

Carlsberg (Adopt a keg)

Pringles (Hunger hammer)

Volvo (for Life)

Gillette (A woman’s day tribute)

Raymond’s Love Notes

8. Droga 5 (Digital Native)

It is a global advertising agency set up in New York in 2006. Accenture is meant to be its parent company which is a fortune 500 company based in Ireland. David Droga coined the name “Droga5” sewed by his mother on their clothing belonging to the fifth of her six children. Droga established his first office later.

It works across all platforms including broadcast, print, digital, social, experiential and out-of-home. It has been in the top-ranked 10th agency of the world.

Website: https://droga5.com

Awards and achievements

• Droga5 won for brand Amazon prime video for campaign “great shows stay with you” and Argent for campaign (coal drops yard).

Droga5’s Clients include BBC, Blizzard Entertainment, The Coca-Cola Company, Farfetch, Georgia-Pacific, Google, Heineken, Hennessy, Johnsonville

Notable ad campaigns by Droga 5

Harley Davidson (Magic hour)

New York Times

Twizzlers (Cold case)

Tourism Australia (Dundee)

Google #myAndroid: Taste Test

9. BBDO

BBDO is arguably the world’s most admired creative network, having won more industry awards since 2005 than any other. Its roots were first laid down by George Batten, who was later to provide the first B in BBDO. Other characters mean Barton, Durstine, Osborn that has a collection of world prestigious clients.

BBDO has 289 offices in 81 different countries with more than 15000 employees.

It is considered as the largest network of three global agencies BBDO, DDB & TBWA.

Advertising agency like BBDO is generally among the top tier of agencies in each market.

It operates and offers a broad range of marketing services in most countries. Sometimes it offers through locally acquired and separately branded specialist subsidiaries or affiliates.

This company has a presence in 18 countries in Latin America.

Website: https://bbdo.com/

Awards and achievements

• Won silver for confectionery category (Snickers), bronze for Ariel (short fiction film), gold for Getty images(poster), silver for UN Women (use of social media) and many more on the list.

BBDO Clients: Subway, Hot Wheel, Fisher price, Pepsico, HP

Notable ad campaigns by BBDO

Snickers (You stay you, when you stay home)

Ariel (Share the load)

Dove(Watergraphy)

Canadian Paralympic Committee (The letter)

Pepsi (Thirsty For More)

10. Y and R (Young & Rubicam) – Resist the usual

Young and Rubicam has its roots in Philadelphia started as a very small unit, later it moved to New York in 1926 and the journey went on. Now it is known as one of the most iconic advertising agencies in the world. It has its headquarters situated in New York and was founded by John Orr Young. It is one of the most ideal companies specializing in advertising, digital and media.

Young and Rubicam started in 1978 and is a full-service agency. It is executing both online and off-line advertising. Also, it has approximately 200 employees with more than $250 million in annual billings.

Website: https://www.vml.com/

Awards and achievements

• Won 9 gold world medals, 13 silver and 15 bronze medals.
• Gold for FIAT campaign which was extremely successful.

Clients: Sony, Adobe, Burger King, Dell, and Chevron.

Notable ad campaigns by Y and R

Wunderman Thompson(Hellmann’s Make Taste Not Waste)

Varuna Pumps (Lifesaving scarecrows)

VML Commerce(I See Coke)

Red Bull (Charge ahead)

Conclusion

All this has been gathered to present a package full of great advertising examples for you. With this you will understand what it takes to be a part of an advertising agency. And with your hard work, passion and love for graphics and advertising you can achieve what you imagine.

Author’s Note:

Advertising agencies has changed how the marketing world works. Creative ideas in advertising are always encouraged. It shows what a customer is thinking and what he wants. 

They have taught us how to connect with the customer, even without saying a word.

After reading this blog, you might also feel fascinated towards the world of advertising.

If that so, we would love to introduce you with the splendid advertising and Graphic design courses of ADMEC Multimedia Institute.

Which you should choose? Visit our websites and go through our new favorite advertising and Graphic Design courses.

Stay tuned with us for more informative blogs. Till then, keep exploring!