WPP scoops Agency of the Year

Hong Kong - Senior client marketers have overwhelmingly selected WPP agencies Ogilvy & Mather and MindShare their preferred creative, media buying and planning, direct, PR and interactive agencies in Marketing Hong Kong's first agency of the year awards.

WPP took a convincing lead across the majority of categories with WPP's brand consultancy, The Brand Union, taking out the brand consultants category and Ogilvy agencies taking out creative, direct marketing, public relations and interactive categories.

In the media buying and planning category, client marketers recommended MindShare Hong Kong as the preferred agency, ahead of OMD and ZenithOptimedia in third place.

MindShare also performed well in the interactive category where it drew third place.

Melanie Lo, managing director MindShare Hong Kong, said throughout 2007, MindShare stopped being "just a media agency".

"Our early investments in digital, content and insights are now really starting to pay off," she said.

"We are extremely pleased to have such a strong, positive endorsement in the market, particularly the endorsement from senior client marketers. It's testimony to our efforts to evolve as the media landscape has diversified.

A total of 519 senior client marketers and agency managers responded to the Hong Kong Agency of the Year survey. Of that 519, 202 or 38.92% were from the client side, while 317, or 61.08% were from the agency side.

The market research category saw ACNielsen take out the top position, with more than 26% of clients nominating the research group as a preferred research partner, with Synovate in second place with a 20% share of recommendations and Cimigo in third place with 10.4% share of client recommendations.

The events category drew dew one of the most eclectic groupings of agencies but Jack Morton led the category with 6.6% share of recommendations, followed by Ogilvy PR with a 4.64% share.

Full details of the research, conducted by BDM Intelligence, can be seen in the December issue of Marketing Hong Kong.