Pitcher queries Ogilvy's rise to top of China rankings

<p>HONG KONG: Saatchi & Saatchi has challenged a Hong Kong 4A's China </p><p>ranking, which pushed his agency off the top spot for the first time in </p><p>six years. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>According to the 4A's, Ogilvy & Mather is the biggest agency on the </p><p>mainland with capitalised billings last year of HKdollars 1.15 billion </p><p>(about USdollars 148 million), compared with Saatchi's HKdollars 1.11 </p><p>billion. Saatchi's Asia chief executive Patrick Pitcher said that O&M </p><p>pipped his agency with an 84 per cent growth in production income, which </p><p>he questioned as being "extremely high when the industry average, </p><p>excluding O&M, is around 12 per cent". </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>O&M regional chairman Miles Young countered by saying: "The production </p><p>income category includes fees, as opposed to media commissions, and the </p><p>growth in fees was very strong last year with around 60 per cent of our </p><p>clients in China on fees, including IBM, Kodak and Motorola. And that </p><p>was on top of a large pool of interactive business." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Pitcher, however, is refusing to concede defeat until the publication of </p><p>a similar ranking by the China Advertising Association next month, which </p><p>he claimed is more accurate because all figures are based on taxes </p><p>paid. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, second-placed DDB has closed the gap with O&M </p><p>(dollars 1.29 billion) to just dollars 8 million. </p><p><BR><BR> </p>