Webinar recording: financial performance of marketing services companies 2021 – highlights
During the webinar, Francesca Robe covered the key findings of the survey, and reviewed KPIs and trends across the marketing services sector. She also looked back at previous years’ results and covered some of the key results from the recent survey we conducted. Below are the highlights from the presentation.
- 2020 results saw the largest decrease in revenue across the sector since the Annual Survey started 31 years ago as the effects of Covid-19 were felt across all disciplines
- Average operating profit margins reduced to 10.2% – the largest fall we’ve ever recorded
- Agencies managed to minimise the impact on profits by reducing spend on staff costs, freelancers and other overheads and by claiming furlough grants
- Despite the pandemic five agencies met all our benchmark targets and made it into our Hall of Fame
- Agencies expect revenue growth to recover next year with an average increase of 16% on 2019 along with an average operating profit margin of 15%
ESG has found its way to the forefront of the business agenda, and rightly so. It is becoming one of the chief differentiators when it comes to attracting clients, talent and investors, making it fundamental for agencies to integrate a comprehensive ESG policy into their strategy and day-to-day functionality. Following the launch of our annual survey on the financial performance of marketing services companies 2021, we were joined by Gonzalo Bisquerra, VP, Head of Marketing & Sales at GSK, and Peter Reid, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at MSQ Partners Ltd, who discussed the impact that ESG is having on the industry. Below are the key points to come out of the discussion.
- Implementing an ESG policy isn’t as hard as you may think – start small. Taking small steps will help to gain buy-in internally, before you even begin to think of the external environment
- Agencies need to ensure their suppliers/partners they work with also have ESG on their agenda
- Creative diversity – agencies should look at the talent base within the accounts they work with. Are the teams diverse with representation in terms of gender and ethnicity?
- Set a baseline of improvements that you can track. ESG within a business can be tough to measure so gathering evidence to show the impact and improvement over the years will be key to show progression
- ESG and sustainability questions are becoming more evident in Requests For Proposals (RFPs) and are likely to be a key component of RFPs in the future
- An ESG thinking business will help to attract potential buyers. Acquirers are always on the lookout for businesses that are switched on from an ESG point of view
- Help your peers to learn more about ESG within their business. If you have a client/supplier that hasn’t yet embarked on their ESG journey, share your own teachings and success, along with your failures
Watch the full webinar recording here (presentation and panel discussion)
Watch the annual survey presentation results here
Watch the panel discussion here
Please do get in contact with your normal Moore Kingston Smith contact or contact our media team for any questions you may have or to discuss the findings of our annual survey.