Publicis Media once again led total global new business rankings among the big agency groups in H1, but the gap between it and its rivals shrunk relative to full-year 2025 results.
According to the latest figures from COMvergence, Publicis Media generated $3.24bn in total new business value, including $903m in retained billings. Notable group-level wins in H1 included Adidas (Greater China), HP, Microsoft and Prada.
Many of Publicis Group’s wins, including Microsoft and its September win of PepsiCo, occurred without a pitch.
In second place behind Publicis is Omnicom Media, with $3.15bn. This included $1.68bn in net new-client wins and $1.48bn in retentions. Wins included Delta, IBM, On and Subway.
WPP Media ranks third with $2.98bn in net new business value. Notably, while it won ($3.22bn) and retained ($2.04bn) the most business, it also lost the most business ($2.28bn). Major client wins included Estée Lauder, Jaguar Land Rover, SC Johnson and Wendy’s.
A gap between these Big Three and smaller, more regionally-focused holding group players Dentsu and Havas Media Network was apparent in H1. Both Dentsu (-$181m) and Havas (-$343m) posted negative totals through the first half of the year, with losses outweighing wins and retentions.
Among the media account moves and retentions examined by COMvergence, the US market accounted for 39% of total spend reviewed globally, followed by China (15%). Local, single-country pitches accounted 58% of spend reviewed.
Overall retention rate across the agencies was 28%, led by Publicis Media (52%) and followed by Omnicom Media (47%) and WPP Media (47%) tied in second place and Dentsu (34%) and Havas Media Network (6%) lagging behind, respectively.
Notably, the holding groups are assigning an increasingly amount of new business wins to centralised solutions rather than individual agencies.
As COMvergence founder and CEO Olivier Gauthier noted, these solutions secured more than one quarter (26%, or $5bn) of the $19.2bn in total media spend reviewed by COMvergence.
This shift is being led by WPP Media, which assigned $2.24bn (69%) of its total new wins to its standalone group unit. This was followed by Publicis Media ($1.5bn, or 47% of total new wins) and Omnicom Media $1.11bn, or 34% of total new wins).
“What we are seeing is a clear shift towards the consolidation of media business within bespoke, centralising solutions operated directly by the Big 5 holding groups, outside their global agency brands,” commented Gauthier.
Rinse and repeat? Part II: How Publicis is stealing the show and how it feels to compete
PHD leads the agency brand table
That’s not to say that individual agency brands are not still driving business.
Among the top five global media agency networks, Omnicom is represented thrice with PHD, OMD, and the recently merged Hearts United (formerly Hearts & Science and IPG’s Mediahub).
The rest of the table is filled out by Publicis Media’s Zenith and WPP Media’s Wavemaker.
The COMvergence report also examined 120 independent agencies, which collectively captured $3bn of reviewed ad spend, equivalent to 16% of the market.
The largest global indie agencies for total new business were led by Horizon Media ($540m), PMG ($355m) and Tinuiti ($300m).
