The latest monitoring figures from Ipsos-Stat show that the sustained growth of OMD since its inception in 2002 has propelled it to the top. With a monitored investment of more than $170 million in the first six months of 2005, the OMD Group is now the GCC’s largest media specialist agency.
This feat has been achieved thanks to a combination of sustained investments from its clients and a successful new business drive over the last year or so.
Significantly, the OMD Group is the most consistent media specialist across all media types, never ranking less than second. While other networks show a bias towards one or two media, OMD is the most consistently spread out thanks to its balanced client portfolio.
“A leadership position is only important in that it enables us to deliver better results for our clients,” says Elie Khouri, regional managing director of OMD Middle East. “While it is a significant achievement, the overall number 1 slot was never a goal by itself. What makes this truly significant however is that we also rank highly across the various media sectors. Media is a numbers game, where bigger tends to be better.”
He added that this new leadership position is a result of this client-centric approach and a testament of clients’ confidence in OMD’s ability to deliver the results it commits to. “We’ve always strived to deliver the best results for our clients,” Khouri comments. “We achieved this before and will continue to do so. This leadership position may make it a little easier.”
Khouri highlights that now isn’t the time for complacency and that change is a constant. “We must keep looking ahead. “Those who only look in the past or the present are certain to miss the future”, once said JFK. We’re not among them.”
Leadership isn’t limited to billings and OMD is focused on leading its industry in other ways too. Industry initiatives, new services and training are all ways for OMD to promote best practice in the region. “We ended 2004 with the promise we’d make more noise in 2005,” Khouri recalls. “We’re already delivering on that promise and are already preparing a few surprises for 2006.”
OMD is the leading global media specialist network, with a presence in over 80 countries. OMD belongs to the OMNICOM Group, the world’s largest communication group that also owns three agency networks, BBDO, DDB and TBWA. The first-ever Gunn Report for Media named OMD as the world most awarded media network. It recently won more Media Lions in the 2005 Cannes Festival than any other media network. OMD employs more than 4,300 experts globally and works for 15,000 companies.
