This story has been updated.

RECMA has released its latest global “vitality” rating of media agencies’ competitiveness, and UM leads the way.

The vitality score is an index based on qualitative measures such as competitiveness, revenue from new business, pitch participation over a three-year period, awards and the stability of top management.

The Interpublic-owned UM earned an indexed score of 10.4 across those 47 markets. Initiative (also owned by Interpublic) ranked second with 9.4 and Dentsu Aegis’s Carat came third with 9.1. The scores are current to August.

The ranking compares the August scores to those from January, before the COVID-19 pandemic upended business. Of those three leading media agencies, only Initiative saw its score increase over the measured time period, from 7.3. UM came down from 11.4 and Carat dropped from 10.7.

Mediacom (8.8) and Havas (8.5) round out the global ranking’s top five, with both also seeing increases from January. Though they didn’t crack the top five, Wavemaker (6.1) and Starcom (5.5) were among the other agencies to have notably increased their score from January, rising from 5.3 and 4.7, respectively.

RECMA measures more than 700 businesses across 47 countries as part of its annual Diagnostics report. The vitality scores represent nine of its 19 scoring measures, which all contribute to its overall qualitative rankings.

According to RECMA’s most recent Canadian vitality rankings (current to August 2020), Cossette Media has the highest vitality score among the 22 media agencies measured with 12 points. Touché has 10 and global leader UM has 8.

Correction: This story originally reported global results as being Canadian results. The story has been changed to clarify which rankings are global and which are Canadian. Media In Canada regrets the error.