COMvergence Unveils H1 2026 Australia New Business Results
WPP Media and its agency Wavemaker lead Australia media agency new business in H1 2026, according to the latest New Business Barometer from COMvergence.
The H1 2026 report tracked 105 media account moves and pitches in Australia, representing an estimated USD $660M in media spend.
Of the total, USD $392M related to local pitches and USD $268M related to regional or global pitches.
USD $231M (35%) of the spend reviewed was for a retained account.
WPP Media recorded USD $221M in net new business and retentions, placing it first among agency groups.
This was driven by wins for L’Oreal ($91M), Uber ($33M) and JLR ($16M).
Publicis Media followed with USD $165M in total new business, driven by wins for Samsung ($48M), Lactalis ($28M) and Tourism Australia ($16M).
Dentsu came in third place and recorded USD $4M, with its Tabcorp win ($28.5M) largely offsetting any losses.
When combined together, independent agencies won a total of USD $43M in H1’26
Major account activity
The largest media account moves and pitches assessed during the period included L’Oreal ($91M), Samsung ($48M), Western Australia Government ($36M), Uber ($33M) and Tabcorp ($29M).
Local versus global pitches Australia was on par with the global picture.
58% of assessed media reviews and moves globally were driven by local pitches, local pitches in Australia accounted for 57% of total media spend reviewed during H1 2026.
Sources
Account move information is derived from industry business press and company news websites which are then validated by all the agencies studied (a total of over 1,000 agencies across 49 countries cooperating with COMvergence).
