How Many Marketing Agencies Are There in the World?

The global agency landscape has become increasingly crowded and complex over the past decade. While large agency networks and holding companies are at the forefront, consulting firms and tech giants have also entered the fray to compete. This has made it difficult to distinguish between what is considered an agency and who is best suited to support global marketing, advertising, and digital initiatives.

Freeman

With more than 7,000 employees and 90 locations around the world, they offer full marketing and design services to some of the world's leading brands through memorable events. They have worked with LG, Google, BMW, Cisco, and many more. Despite being the smallest of the top three advertising agencies within the Publicis Groupe network, they still work with six of the top 10 global advertisers.Saatchi & Saatchi is another example. Founded as an emerging advertising agency in the 1970s, they have since grown into a global communication agency with 114 offices in 67 countries.

Asatsu-DK is a Japanese advertising agency and the third largest in Japan after Dentsu and Hakuhodo. This list only represents the 50 largest agencies and not the networks or groups of agencies such as WPP, Publicis Group, Dentsu Inc., Interpublic, and Omnicom Group. Deloitte Digital is also making waves in this space by acquiring San Francisco-based creative store Heat and Swedish agency Acne. MEC is another major player in this space. The fourth largest agency of WPP GroupM, they provide media services to clients such as Vodafone, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, Marriott, Chanel, GE, and Xerox.

With more than 80 offices around the world, they are the only agency that is present in all 28 EU Member States and in economic centers around the world.