The company stresses that the Compitches study is not measuring the agencies' new business activity nor their billings growth but it is a pure assessment of their level of competitiveness in winning (or retaining existing) accounts after pitch. After a year of recession in 2009, most of the networks claimed double digit growth in 2010 - but does it really reflect their excellence in being successful in pitches?
The company says that one of the main improvements of this annual study is the refinement of its assessment process. The appreciation of the account moves has been further reinforced by the definition of Key pitches which are now crucial to determine the assigned grade. The two parameters that must be set in order to elect a key pitch are:
1. The identification of the contenders (major players in the country)
2. The fact that the account has to be part of the top 200 / 300 advertisers (according to the market size).
A one-page table-by-country summarising all the key pitches won and lost by the agencies is included in Part 2 of the report.
The identification and analysis of 3000+ account moves, including 550 key pitches, through 422 media agencies across 35 countries, results in the following Top 3 ranking:
| 1 | MEC | 108 points |
| 2 | Mindshare | 102 points |
| 3= | Starcom MediaVest | 99 points |
| Carat | 98 points |
A ranking simulation based on weighting coefficients (in correlation with the market sizes) was made in order to compare scores and ranks with the official global ranking (no weighting).
Although the USA score accounts for 25% and the Top12 countries for 80%, positions are similar for all networks except three.
This report also offers mid-term rankings based on the network scores (in 26 countries) over the past three years, and even the past six years. The main conclusion of this analysis is that the network performances in Compitches are uneven for most of them (who have a complete geographical coverage) from one year to another. Indeed six networks (MEC, OMD, Mindshare, Starcom MediaVest, Carat and Initiative) held a position within the top three of the past three years' rankings. Therefore the competition is wide open and, on a long-term scale, none of the networks really dominates the industry on this ground.
Please note that the 422 analysis files (9-reason-for-account-moves tables) by agency justifying the Compitches grades are exclusively available through the Domestic reports - along with the first new business trends 2011 part of the country Qualitative Evaluations - April 2011 (2nd edition of the year).
