About the South West Top 100

For our very first Top 100, we’ve compiled several different league tables. The main one is the overview of the Top 100 companies across the key creative sectors: TV, digital, design, marketing and advertising, PR, animation and publishing.

These tables are all ranked by turnover submitted by
the individual companies after completing an online survey form. All creative companies across the region were invited to take part and the project was promoted far and wide, on the Bristol Media website, sister cluster and sector network websites, and through general press releases announcing the survey launch across local and regional media.

The Top 100 is purely a financial measure
and takes no account of physical size, creativity or
client satisfaction.

We asked all companies completing the survey (over 270) to provide audited turnover figures or, where this wasn’t possible, projections for 2008/9.

As this was the first time a survey like this had ever been compiled
in the region, our primary objective was to get an idea of the size, financial position and combined value of the South West’s creative sector. So, to achieve this, we wanted to ensure that as many
companies were included in the final table as possible, and we didn’t want to simply disqualify companies because they hadn’t filed final audited accounts. So for some companies their projected 2008/9 turnover has been submitted.

We have also included sector specific Top 10s (where possible), so readers can see a snapshot of the region’s significant players, by turnover. They show companies in the exact same position as the main Top 100 table merely recognised by their sector.

There was a debate early on in the process as to whether the ranking of companies should be based on overall turnover or on fee-based income. Many industry league tables, especially in the marketing communications sectors (digital, design, marketing and PR), use fee-based income as a more representative gauge on how to judge the size of a company. A fee-based measure excludes items such as media planning and buying, print and significant production-based outcost.

As we’ve brought together several different creative disciplines in one table, it was difficult to come up with one unified way that suited everyone, so, for this year, we opted for the easiest solution: turnover.
We acknowledge that we’ll need to look more closely at this issue next year, and a fee based league table may result in companies going up or down from where they are ranked in this year’s guide.

Companies chose for themselves which sector described the majority of their work. This, of course, doesn’t mean that this is their sole area of business and, where given, we have highlighted in the individual profiles the business split and range
of operations.

There are also companies that, because of their structure, have not been able to supply a regional breakdown of their turnover. On the few occasions that this was the case, we’ve agreed to work closer with these companies next year to ensure that the figures submitted are for work generated by their regional offices, rather than the entire group.

There were also several companies that wanted to take part in the survey, but, because of their ownership, were unable to participate. This is due to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in the US in 2002 as a result of the wave of corporate accounting scandals. The act makes the CEOs or CFOs of public companies personally liable for any false or misleading financial information put out by their companies. As a result, some multi-national groups have declined to submit their figures.

On top of individual questions about their business, we also asked people completing the survey to choose the creative company and individual (other than themselves) that they most respected in the region. The votes were counted and verified by Smith Williamson and the resulting tables appear on the "Top 5 Most Respected" page.

Although collating the Top 100 companies was our primary focus, we didn’t want to overlook the wealth of new, start-up talent or companies that simply just missed out this year so we’ve created our very own “Ones to Watch” section for those we thought deserved an honourable mention for doing interesting and exciting work. Watch this space to see them appearing in the Top 100 in years to come.

Finally, a health warning. While we’ve taken the utmost care and attention when compiling the tables, they can ultimately only be as reliable as the information supplied to us by the companies themselves, and the figures signed off by their agency head or financial director. The tables overleaf are, therefore, to the best of our knowledge, an accurate picture of the leading creative companies in the South West.