According to COMvergence's latest Middle East (GCC + Egypt) media agency study, titled "New Business Barometer for the FY 2021," PHD came out as the top Middle East media agency with a net new business value of $107 million, largely due to the major retentions of Unilever ($100 million).

OMD ranked second thanks to the wins of Dubai Expo ($43 million) and OSN Telecom ($30 million), whilst Mediacom and Mindshare share the third rank ($63 million).

Top 5 Middle East new business ranking – media agency networks

Top 3 Middle East new business ranking – media agency groups

Omnicom Media (OMG) ranks first with a total new business value of +$193 million (including $218 million of new wins). GroupM ranks second with a total new business value of +$143 million (including $73 million of retentions such as Ferrero).

In 2021, COMvergence assessed 80 media account moves and retentions in the Middle East, totaling $451 million (doubling last year's $205 million). This figure represents about 21% of the Middle East media agency billings ($2,1 billion) studied by COMvergence.

Local pitches are less dominant than previous years, with a total spend reviewed amounting to $157 million (35% of the total volume assessed in 2021), whilst the retention rate is 20%.

The top largest reviews resulted in $451 million.

Sources: Information on account moves are derived from industry news websites and then validated by all the agencies studied (all cooperating with COMvergence). Offline deflated media spend are sourced from Nielsen data where a strategic partnership with COMvergence exists – while digital media spend are estimated by COMvergence through a proprietary methodology.