Orange County’s advertising agencies posted an estimated 5.7% gain in revenue last year as clients opened their wallets on marketing budgets.
Twenty-two agencies reported revenue increases in 2013. One was flat, and four were down. The remaining 15 entries are Business Journal estimates. They combined for $605.9 million in revenue.
The Business Journal ranked agencies by capitalized billings in prior years. The move to revenue as a criterion is an effort to more accurately reflect the state of the industry.
• Pacific Communications in Costa Mesa lead the pack with a 5.6% revenue increase for $57.9 million and 240 employees.
2013 was “a stressful year,” according to Ryan Abbate, the agen-cy’s president, whose team launched Vol-uma, a new line for Allergan Inc.’s der-mal filler Juvederm in the fourth quarter.
“We started off very slow, and many of our clients struggled a bit and therefore had budget cuts, so we were impacted,” Abbate said. “But we ended up finishing strong, and a lot of that had to do … with us expanding services with existing clients. And as bad as the beginning of last year was, this year has been that good. Budgets are holding up.”
• Rauxa, a Costa Mesa-based ad agency, leaped 17 spots to No. 2, with $54.4 million in revenue. The agency fully integrated last year with Thought Matrix, a technology firm it bought two years ago.
“We have reorganized our entire company,” said Gina Alshuler, Rauxa’s president.
The agency now has “experienced design folks who are not just digital designers, they are UX experts. And when they sit down to think through a project, whether it is building an app or a website, they don’t just think how it looks visually, they also think about functionality,” she said.
“Normally, those are two different brains, two different bodies. We find unique talent that can do both, which essentially cuts time and money out for our clients.”
The agency also has “content management folks” and a “strategic planning group,” a structure that’s repeated throughout its offices in San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Atlanta.
Rauxa won five to 10 accounts in 2013, including assignment work for Costa Mesa-based Experian PLC. Digital platform implementation and bridging content management and ecommerce platforms for large technology brands will be its area of growth this year, Alshuler said.
• InnoceanUSA in Huntington Beach ranked No. 3 with an estimated $46.4 million in revenue and 280 employees.
Fountain Valley-based Hyundai Motor America Inc.’s dedicated advertising agency had a successful run with “The Walking Dead Chop Shop” campaign last year. It also added other clients, such as New York-based dairy product manufacturer Alpina Foods, and is looking for more nonautomotive clients.
• Agency Ingram Micro in Santa Ana, an in-house entity of technology distribution giant Ingram Micro Inc., ranked No. 4 with an estimated $42 million in revenue.
• Al Punto Advertising Inc. in Tustin reported $37.5 million in revenue for the No. 5 spot on the list. The agency reduced its staff levels by 13.8% for a total of 25.
• Wunderman in Irvine ranked No. 8, with an estimated $27 million in revenue in 2013, which Dan Olson, managing director for Wunderman’s Western region, described as a “robust year.”
The agency lost the account for Southern California Edison, which “had a really tough year” and was “under a lot of pressure from the state to reduce costs,” Olson said.
“We had been extended for two years on a three-year contract, and in the final extension we decided to part ways.”
Wunderman, the global advertising agency, has won the Shell Retail, part of Royal Dutch Shell PLC business, and its Irvine outpost is “working as the North American point here to manage Shell’s [customer relationship management] activity,” he said.
The agency has also continued working with its long-standing clients. That work has included providing health exchange marketing throughout L.A. and Orange counties focusing on Latino households for Health Net Inc., and a direct-to-consumer campaign for Santa Ana-based Abbot Medical Optics Inc.
• Irvine-based digital ad agency GigaSavvy, a newcomer to the list, reported the biggest year-over-year revenue increase on the list—72.5%—to $12.3 million. Its staffing levels rose 66.7% to 30 employees here.
• Andersen Jones Partners Inc. in San Clemente and Irvine-based Brandkarma LLC and RiechesBaird reported revenue declines.
The agencies employed a combined 1,713 in advertising personnel, up 4.4% over 2012.
