WARC Creative 100: Orange, Publicis, Rethink, Ogilvy, AB InBev and WPP

As the ad world girds its loins for the awards season – Cannes starts on June 20 so it should be hot – WARC has announced its Creative 100, what used to be the Gunn Report, which tots up the winners at the previous year’s big global and regional awards shows.

As such it’s a pretty accurate guide to the best work from the biggest advertisers, agencies and networks although one shouldn’t forget that entering these things is an expensive and increasingly time-consuming business. Back in 2017 Publicis Groupe pulled out of awards to invest a reported 2017 €50m in AI system Marcel. This at a time when WPP under Sir Martin Sorrell was doubling down on awards to wrest the Cannes Lions creative crown, among others, from rival Omnicom. These days, it’s fair to say, the cost of awards entry must be bigger.

WARC’s Top 100 has:

#1 campaign: WoMen’s Football by Marcel Paris for Orange

#1 Agency: Publicis Conseil Paris | #1 Independent agency: Rethink Toronto

#1 Network: Ogilvy | #1 Independent network: Serviceplan

#1 Holding Company: WPP

#1 Brand: Apple

#1 Advertiser: Anheuser-Busch InBev

#1 Country: United States

More detail:

For the agencies/holding companies Ogilvy and VML (a combo these days of VML, Y&R, JWT and Wunderman) have obviously done well for WPP. As has AKQA (11th in agencies) despite management ructions which have seen founder Ajaz Ahmed and others leave. More generally creative has been a troublesome spot for the holding companies in financial terms, losing ground to media.

WPP global CCO Rob Reilly says: “Topping the WARC Creative 100 for the third year running is a testament to the relentless creativity and dedication of our teams worldwide. Seeing Ogilvy named Network of the Year again, with VML securing the second spot, is a powerful demonstration of our creative strength. Thank you to our incredibly talented agency teams and, most importantly, to our brave clients who trust us to bring their visions to life. We couldn’t do it without them. It’s humbling and inspiring.”

What these computations don’t, and probably never can, measure is, are todays’s award-winners as good as they were, say, ten, twenty years ago when creative ruled the network waves. But WPP will be pleased to set off for La Croisette (and other places) with some good news.