ANALYSIS: Rankings - Recma vows to end annual row. Recma promises more checks and balances in next year's rankings, as Alfred Hille reports

The row over the Recma Institute's annual media agency rankings appears to have become something of a summer rite in Asia, but the fracas does highlight the pressing need to overhaul the way league tables are compiled. Media agencies have taken aim at Recma, claiming the Paris-based organisation only asks for billings and then changes them arbitrarily. Recma says it is aware of the problems and made minor improvements when it compiled the 2000 rankings. The bulk of the improvements, it says, will be felt next year. This year, for the first time, Recma asked for income figures from agency head offices for the 2000 rankings. The request apparently fell on deaf ears. "Very few were willing" to provide the data, according to Stephanie Cooper, Recma international sales manager. However, Recma's chief editor Eudes Delafon said he would try to match figures submitted by agencies with ACNielsen numbers to significantly improve accuracy for the next round of rankings. Recma has been using ACNielsen data for several years in Europe, and extended the partnership to the US for the first time this year. "This year, we weren't able to use ACNielsen figures in Asia because we ran out of time but we will do so next year. I also think that agencies will eventually give us income figures at least for the major markets," says Delafon. "Five years ago in France, for example, very few agencies were willing to give us income figures, but today they all do because they will be perceived as hiding something if they don't. It's a slow process so improvements will take time." Corroborating income data with third party figures should go some way to reducing the margin of error. Says Cooper: "Billings remain a highly unreliable indicator but until a more accurate one is found, they must be our basis, for what they are worth. "Where a network's declared billings are inconsistent, either with previous declarations or with their networks or the market staff/billings ratio, Recma occasionally makes an estimate," she adds. French agencies may have come around to the idea of revealing their income figures, but it's going to require immense persuasion to spark a change in Asia. Delafon has a theory to explain this reluctance: "The revenue of media buying and planning agencies is about two to four per cent of their total billings. Advertising agencies, by comparison, are generating a revenue of 10 to 12 per cent of the total marketing communications budget. Given these figures, perhaps the media agencies are ashamed to show their rate of return." Another point to consider is that dependent agencies don't want to reveal the income split with their creative agencies. "They don't want their inner workings to become public knowledge," an industry observer comments. OMD Asia chief executive officer Mike Cooper believes the quality of Recma's rankings in Asia could be improved if it used ACNielsen Adex figures for corroboration. "Of course, Adex doesn't take into account discounts, but it should give a good indication of the accuracy of figures being submitted," he argues. A contentious point of this year's rankings is Zenith Asia's 169 per cent billings boost, which was recorded despite the loss of the massive Procter & Gamble media buying account. Starcom snagged the account, which was estimated to be worth US$160 million. Zenith Asia chief executive Antony Young explains that this is because the agency's 1999 billings were understated, which resulted in a triple digit year-on-year growth rate. Recma's Cooper puts this down to a "network error in the declaration for 1999", which she claims was subsequently rectified in co-operation with Zenith. However, MindShare China chief executive Chris Walton expressed incredulity at the process. "Recma asks us for figures - unaudited figures - but when the numbers are published, they are different to what has been given to them. I don't understand how they arrived at their figures." By way of explaining the discrepancies, Recma's Cooper says: "Recma defines billings as the annualised value of media purchased on behalf of clients before agency discounts. "Our questionnaire requests net billings, however, the figures provided by the networks are sometimes not consistent with former declarations and with figures for staff increase." While Zenith might be satisfied with the latest rankings - and it should be having taken pole position - its rivals charge that the rankings will not present the region in a true and fair light. Universal McCann and MindShare are both puzzled over the exclusion of two sizeable markets - Japan and India - in the final Asia-Pacific count. Both agencies claim that the inclusion of the two countries would have significantly improved their position. MindShare insists that it would have retained its top ranking with the addition of hundreds of millions of dollars to its Asia-Pacific tally. Universal McCann executive vice-president and regional director, Allan Medforth, adds: "The exclusion of Japan and India gives figures for us and our competitors which bear no resemblance to what we think is happening in this part of the world." Recma says it excluded both markets in the interest of accuracy and fairness because the buying power of the unbundled multinational media agencies is weak or still in its infancy there. Another problem Recma will need to resolve is the double counting issue, according to Carat Asia-Pacific chief executive David Liu. "One agency does the planning but claims the buying part, while the buying agency also claims the buying part. "It can be argued that both have a right to claim the buying part, but the latter more than the former. However, there aren't any procedures to resolve this and the figures could reveal a market that is double what it really is," says Liu. The arguments and counter arguments have been lobbed and the impetus to change in the interests of accuracy and accountability is clearly in Recma's interest. Says OMD's Cooper: "If there is no accountability or transparency, the whole Recma exercise will just be a sheet of paper you fill in with whatever number you want." HOW AGENCIES MEASURE UP IN ASIA-PACIFIC (billings, usdollars m) Rank Networks Total Australia New SE (Owner Groups) Region Zealand Asia 1 Zenith Media (Cordiant) 1,782 660 - 313 2 MindShare (WPP) 1,730 225 - 550 3 Starcom MediaVest SMG (Bcom3) 1,504 500 - 323 4 OMD (Omnicom) 1,470 510 - 415 5 The Media Edge (WPP) 1,156 410 45 418 6 Initiative Media (Interpublic) 1,110 700 - 410 7 Universal McCann (Interpublic) 957 208 20 320 8 Carat (Aegis) 554 138 30 108 9 Optimedia (Publicis) 433 246 24 163 10 MediaCom (Grey) 312 125 15 97 11 CIA (Tempus) 213 - - 100 12 Media Planning Group (Havas) 135 - - 42 Rank Networks Hong China Taiwan South (Owner Groups) Kong Korea 1 Zenith Media (Cordiant) 273 464 72 - 2 MindShare (WPP) 220 447 258 - 3 Starcom MediaVest SMG (Bcom3) 117 299 158 107 4 OMD (Omnicom) 244 165 72 6 5 The Media Edge (WPP) 43 138 71 31 6 Initiative Media (Interpublic) - - - - 7 Universal McCann (Interpublic) 72 169 72 96 8 Carat (Aegis) 52 123 103 - 9 Optimedia (Publicis) - - - - 10 MediaCom (Grey) 25 50 - - 11 CIA (Tempus) 65 - 48 - 12 Media Planning Group (Havas) 35 58 - - Source: Recma June 2001.

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