Touché! Montreal was the fifth most awarded media agency in the world last year, while UM Canada was ninth according to the new WARC Media 100. The annual ranking combines the results of the industry’s most important global and regional media award shows, as determined by the WARC Rankings advisory board and a global industry survey.
Both Touché!’s “Digital Window Shopping” program for Sport Chek/Canadian Tire, and UM Toronto/Anomaly/Reprise Toronto’s “The Oh Henry! 4:25 Bar Launch” were among the top 10 most awarded media campaigns globally last year, according to the new WARC Media 100.
Mindshare Sydney’s “Monty: The world’s first AI predictive commentator,” created to launch Fox Sports Cricket, led all global campaigns. Monty predicted when wickets would fall in key cricket matches, alerting potential fans by a combination of mobile display ads, pre-roll video and out-of-home. The service’s accuracy peaked at 87%, and helped grow weekly sales of the service by 18%.
David Tiltmamn, WARC’s vice-president of content, noted that campaigns that led with artificial intelligence and creative data strategies dominated this year’s Media 100, “reflecting the challenges and priorities” of media businesses.
Starcom Chicago was ranked the world’s number one media agency, climbing from 20th in last year’s rankings, on the basis of top 100 campaigns for clients Samsung, Vans, ESPN and The North Face.
Sport Chek/Canadian Tire was one of three brands to enter the top 50 brand rankings for the first time. It went in at seventh, joined by Uber Eats and Uber at ninth and 10th respectively. A strong performance in Asia helped KFC top the brand rankings this year, with two campaigns in the top 100—including the number two ranked “The First Colonel to Conquer eSports.”
Mindshare’s strong global performance enabled WPP to continue its run atop the media holding company rankings, with a total of 11 networks ranking among the top 50. Omnicom maintained its second place ranking, while Interpublic Group maintained its third place ranking.
The U.S. was the top country for the third straight year, with 22 campaigns in the top 100 (three in top 10), while Australia moved up from third to second, with 10 campaigns in the top 100. China jumped from sixth to third, with 11 campaigns in the top 100.
Unilever led the advertiser rankings with three brands (Lifebuoy, P/S and Knorr) in the top 50 and a further 25 brands contributing to its success. Yum! Brands placed second, with Procter & Gamble in third.
