We reveal the top-performing holding-companies in this year's The Drum Honors celebration.
As of November, IPG no longer exists - but it was the best-performing holding company of 2025 by The Drum Awards wins (IPG)
We can today reveal the ranked list of the top holding companies in this year’s The Drum Honors celebration.
This overall list takes into account the performance of all of the world’s top marcomms holding companies by adding up the results of their constituent agencies across all of The Drum’s 2025 awards categories in marketing, advertising, design, PR and communications, media, experiential, B2B, social, content, and digital experience.
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Using a weighted ranking that takes into account all of those agencies’ wins and the number of campaigns they entered, the list brings up some fascinating results.
Most interesting of all: the clear winner at the top of the list is IPG, the New York-based holdco that has now been taken over by competitor Omnicom, turning the ‘big six’ into a ‘big five’.
Our ranking takes into account The Drum Awards performance only, so it’s blind to factors like the rocky financial results in the lead-up to the completion of the takeover last month.
Though IPG no longer exists to collect its plaudits for the ranking, it is perhaps vindication for Omnicom, which ranks third pre-merger but would be a clear winner on points if IPG’s results in the ranking were added to its own. (Though it’s worth noting that some of IPG’s salutary performance can be credited to agencies that are themselves to be sunsetted in the new Omnicom’s post-merger consolidation, including FCB, which goes out with a bang, including a couple of gongs for its work with Pringles).
Other top-performing agencies for IPG included health agency Area23, which was behind multi-award-winning work for Kyikatêjê, Instituto Melanoma Brasil and Equality Health Foundation.
With IPG and Omnicom taking the first and third spots respectively, WPP – which has endured its own difficulties this year – takes the silver medal.
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Publicis, the holding company with the most rosy financial postings this year, comes in fourth, followed by Dentsu in fifth and Stagwell in sixth (Havas, the ‘traditional’ sixth agency in the big six, does not feature in the top six here).
You can see the full ranking below.
| Rank | Holding company |
|---|---|
| 1 | IPG |
| 2 | WPP |
| 3 | Omnicom |
| 4 | Publicis Groupe |
| 5 | Dentsu |
| 6 | Stagwell |
Want more? Check out all of the top winners from this year’s The Drum Honors, browse case studies of all the winning work from this year’s The Drum Awards festival, and mark your calendar for February, when we’ll unveil 2026’s World Creative Rankings.
Stagwell
Stagwell is a global marketing and communications group founded in 2015 by Mark Penn.
IPG
The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (IPG) is an American publicly traded advertising company. The company consists of five major networks: FCB, IPG Mediabrands,...
Omnicom
A global leader in marketing communications, Omnicom provides brand and advertising services to over 5000 clients in over 100 countries.
WPP
WPP plc is a British multinational communications, advertising, public relations, technology, and commerce holding company headquartered in London, England. It was...
Dentsu
Dentsu Inc. is a Japanese international advertising and public relations joint stock company headquartered in Tokyo. Dentsu is currently the largest advertising...
Publicis Groupe
Publicis Groupe is a French multinational advertising and public relations company. One of the oldest and largest marketing and communications companies in the world,...