school reports

This is 'school report' week in Campaign magazine, when they print their annual assessment of agencies' performance. One can debate the scores at length, but I thought it would be interesting just to show how they've ranked UK agencies in comparison to each other. (Even though Campaign says that's not what it's for; it's interesting to do so.) Agencies are marked from 9 (outstanding) to 2 (a year to forget). I've omitted media agencies and direct agencies (or at least, agencies who have so defined themselves) just for simplicity's sake. Scores on the doors are...

9. AKQA, BMB, Elvis, Mother
8. BBH, Chemistry, CHI, Glue, Iris, Kitkatt Nohr, Lean Mean Fighting Machine, MCBD, Work Club
7. AMV, Adam & Eve, Albion, AIS, Cheetham Bell JWT, Dare, DLKW, Fallon, Grand Union, Grey, LBI, Leo Burnett, M&C Saatchi, The Union, WCRS
6. Agency Republic, Golley Slater, I-Level, JWT, Karmarama, Krow, Leith, McCann, Poke, Profero, RKCR, Saatchi & Saatchi, TBWA Manchester, VCCP, Wieden + Kennedy.
5. DDB, Dye Holloway Murray, Farm, Kindred, Leagas Delaney, Ogivly, Publicis, Rapier, RMG Connect
4. Euro RSCG, GT, Hurrell Moseley, TBWA London, Red Brick Road
3. Agency.com, Digitas, Draft FCB, Nitro
2. Lowe, St Luke's

Also interesting to look at ranking by declared income. Usually, the top 30 list is compiled based on billings - the amount of money spent on above the line advertising in the UK by the agencies' clients. This is an increasingly irrelevant measure that bears little relation to an agency's commercial health, as income is no longer tied to billings the way it was in the days of full service and commission-based remuneration. 

Not all agencies divulge their income, so the list below is bound to be misleading and incomplete, but here's a very different UK top 20 from one to which we're accustomed. UK top 20 agencies ranked by declared income (excluding those who declined to divulge a figure and again excluding media and direct):

Rank by income                            Rank by billing

1. I-level (£100.5m)                        N/A
2. BBH (£61m)                              4
3. Leo Burnett (£43m)                 13
4. AMV (£43.3m)                          1
5. Ogilvy (£41.7m)                       9
6. LBI  (£33.5m)                           N/A
7. Iris (£37m)                               N/A
8. AKQA (£32m)                           N/A
9. DLKW (£22.7m)                        10
10. CHI (£21.2m)                         16
11. VCCP (£20.5m)                       24
12.= Fallon (£18.5m)                   12
12.= W+K (£18.5)                         25
14. TBWA London (£18m)             19
15. WCRS (£17.7)                         8
16. Lowe (£17m)                         21
17. Golley Slater (£16.8m)           30
18. Mother (£15.2m)                    18
19. RMG Connect (£14.2)              61
20. Dare (£13m)                           N/A

This list doesn't include some major players like McCann or Euro, who haven't provided revenue figures, but the comparative ranking of the agencies above is presumably a reasonably accurate measure of their relative income. Very different to how they rank on the billings chart. (Except for Mother, which is number 18 in both.)
I'd never have guessed that I-Level would top this chart. They're apparently making £100m on a staff of 121. That's a revenue per head of £826,446. Can that really be right? I don't see how it can.