MUMBAI: Ideas company Saatchi & Saatchi has achieved an unprecedented hat-trick of achievements for the international advertising industry, winning leading US trade publication Advertising Age's Global Agency Network of the year award for 2002, as well as topping the magazine's annual ranking of new business wins.

 
Saatchi & Saatchi also won Adweek's Global Agency of the Year award, in an adverse environment that the magazine admitted was "hell" for most industry operators. "In the fifth year of the Kevin Roberts era, the Saatchi CEO's organic-growth-first strategy proved a formidable hedge against recession," said the magazine's editor Jack Feuer.

Saatchi & Saatchi grew worldwide billings by $US 1.3 billion last year, representing overall growth of around 20 per cent. The agency's performance was boosted by major new assignments from long-term clients Procter & Gamble and General Mills.

The triple triumph crowns Saatchi & Saatchi's creative supremacy at the 2002 Cannes International Advertising Festival - the advertising Oscars - where its awards included Global Network of the year and Agency of the year for its London agency. Saatchi & Saatchi "found itself in a creative groove that most other shops could only envy," said Adweek's Feuer.

Roberts said that the "rewarding" results showed consistent delivery of the company's key challenges - to be in the top three of the Global New Business Table and in the top three at Cannes every year.

"The key to moving Saatchi & Saatchi to peak performance has been a focus on doing outstanding creative work for our clients. Key initiatives like Lovemarks (evolved brands which forge emotional connections with consumers) are already bearing fruit, and will continue to develop in the year ahead," Robert added.

Saatchi & Saatchi is one of the world's leading creative organisations. There are over 7,000 Saatchi & Saatchi people in 138 offices in 82 countries. Annual billings are more than US$ 7 billion. And it currently works for 60 of the world's top 100 advertisers.