Media buyer Aegis (which owns Carat and Vizeum) continues to bring home the bacon for Japanese marcoms giant Dentsu, playing the leading role in helping the company to record revenue of YEN374bn ($3bn) and operating profits of YEN56bn ($454m) in the first half of 2015.
In Japan, where Dentsu is by the far the biggest full service agency, organic profit growth was just 1.6 per cent (an improvement on the previous period) but the international business, powered by Aegis, delivered 11.8 per cent.
Dentsu paid £3.2bn for Aegis three years ago. This looked a big bet at the time but has worked on two levels: adding one of the world’s top media brands (Aegis’ Carat this week topped the RECMA table of top-performing media agencies) and finally getting Dentsu motoring outside Japan.
From time to time Dentsu is tipped as the buyer of one of the other marcoms companies, most likely Interpublic. Its current strong performance suggests that it has digested Aegis and may be ready for another deal. But it may decide that it’s doing quite nicely with media even though its creative agencies, most notably Mcgarrybowen in the US, have failed to crack international markets.