Serviceplan Group is thriving even in times of Covid-19

Florian Haller, CEO of Serviceplan Group, sums up the Serviceplan Group’s results: “It is extraordinary and makes me very proud to see how we were able to cope so well with the Covid-19 crisis, including all its negative effects on the market, the media and clients. This positive financial result is founded on various strategic building blocks, which together contributed to our further substantial development over the past financial year. I would like to thank all my colleagues and partners in the group who overcame these often challenging circumstances superbly, not only professionally but also in their private lives. It is testament to the people and culture of Serviceplan Group that we have come together to get through a challenging year. And the human factor has become significantly more visible as a result of the pandemic – remote working, hybrid event formats and digitalized processes have become an indispensable part of our everyday lives, both today and in the future”.

The entire agency group concluded the financial year ending on 30 June 2021 with a fee turnover of 488 million Euros, an increase of 9 per cent compared to the previous year (448 million Euros).

ÜberCreativity – the special mindset that makes all the difference

“ÜberCreativity” arises when various different communication disciplines combine their specific strengths in order to raise an idea to a previously unattainable creative level. Over the past 2020/21 financial year, it was precisely this special mindset of the agency group that was one of the decisive drivers of success. The Serviceplan Group concept of “House of Communication” (HoC) provides the basis for ÜberCreativity: Creative & Content, Experience & Commerce and Media & Data – all these building blocks are conceived in an integrated way within the HoC and implemented for clients individually and with agility. With new customized agency concepts for and with O2 / Telefónica (“Serviceplan Bubble” – operating since August 2020), BMW (“The Marcom Engine” – operating since September 2020) and Tchibo (“Serviceplan Docks” – account acquired in May 2021), the Serviceplan Group is demonstrating its special ethos as an integrated communications service.In addition, new alliances such as BAUERSERVICEPLAN, the content marketing and corporate publishing services provided jointly by the Bauer Media Group and Serviceplan, as well as related accounts, have strengthened the market position of Europe’s largest owner-managed agency group over the past financial year.

Such joint projects include; the CDU (Serviceplan Reputation, Saint Elmo’s, Serviceplan Campaign, Serviceplan Experience); Fressnapf (Serviceplan Campaign, Future Marketing, Plan.Net Cologne, Plan.Net NEO, Plan.Net Technology, Serviceplan Consulting Group, Serviceplan Solutions); Liftstar (House of Communication Cologne); Nikon (Mediaplus International, Mediaplus Cologne; Plan.Net Performance, Mediascale Cologne) and Siemens Healthineers (Mediaplus International, Plan.Net Pulse); s.Oliver (Mediaplus, Serviceplan Campaign, Serviceplan Design, Serviceplan Consulting Group) and ZDF (Serviceplan Campaign, Plan.Net NEO, Mediaplus Munich, Serviceplan Consulting Group).

Overall, the Serviceplan agencies (including Serviceplan Solutions) reported a fee income of 108 million Euros over the past financial year, an increase of almost 4 per cent.

After a Pandemic-induced hiatus of Cannes Lions in 2020, Serviceplan Group campaigns for clients Dot Corporation (“Dot go”), MINI, METER Group (“Meltdown Flags”), Règles Élémentaires (“INVISIBLE WOMEN”) and Sea-Watch (LIFEBOAT-The Experiment) won two gold, one silver and four bronze medals at this year’s awards. The campaign that won most awards was “MINImalism für MINI”, scooping one gold in the Outdoor category and two bronze medals in the Industry Craft category. The best Serviceplan project at ADC Germany was “Meltdown Flags” which won one Grand Prix, one gold, three silver and two bronze.

Climate neutrality in the advertising market

In March 2021, the Mediaplus Group – recently named German Media Agency of the Year for the second time in a row – and ClimatePartner, announced this central goal with their unique “Green GRP” industry initiative for carbon-offsetting campaigns. Using this new calculation model, companies can now decide to make the advertising they have booked climate neutral – for every medium and regardless of the marketer. 

Florian Haller explains: “Our vision is that brand advertising in Germany – and soon expanding to other countries too – will become carbon neutral. According to the German Advertising Federation, the German advertising market is worth around 25 billion Euros net. If we manage to invest an additional 1 per cent of the money in carbon offsetting and climate protection projects, we will have made an important contribution to climate protection. If all market participants join in, at some point they will all be using only climate-neutral campaigns”. The Green GRP has already been rolled out beyond Germany to other countries such as France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland.

Implementing digitalization consistently

Today the Serviceplan agency group already generates around half of its sales in the digital environment. At agency level, Mediaplus (including Facit) and Plan.Net (including The Marcom Engine) were able to increase their fee income by 11 per cent to 241 million Euros over the past financial year.

Source: Serviceplan Group

  Florian Haller, Serviceplan Group