Advertising and public relations group Ogilvy & Mather shows profits of €1.44m in 2013

The advertising and public relations group Ogilvy & Mather made a profit of €1.44 million in Ireland in 2013, a year in which its turnover dropped 8 per cent, according to accounts filed at the Companies Office.

Ogilvy & Mather Group, which includes Wilson Hartnell Public Relations and advertising agency Young & Rubicam among its subsidiaries, recorded revenues of almost €21.8 million in the year. Lower costs and expenses helped it improve its profits, which arrived at €1.3 million in 2012.

TV3 new soap

Red Rock

The group employed 110 people during the year. Recent advertising work by Ogilvy & Mather Dublin includes campaigns for Ulster Bank, Kellogg’s,

Lucozade

, the ISPCC and TV3, for which it has designed the current high-profile campaign for

Red Rock

, the soap opera that makes its debut on Wednesday.

Ogilvy & Mather is itself 96 per cent owned by WPP Ireland Limited, the Irish business of WPP plc, a FTSE 100 company and the largest advertising company in the world. In Ireland, WPP also owns the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton Limited, which made a small loss in 2013, while it has shareholdings in communications company Chemistry and marketing group Mindshare Media Ireland.

But apart from Ogilvy & Mather, its main interest is in research company Millward Brown Limited. Millward Brown, which is wholly owned by WPP Ireland, made a loss of €900,000 in 2013.

During the year, WPP received a dividend of €7 million from Millward Brown Ireland Limited, which employed about 168 people in the period. It impaired the value of its investment in Millward Brown by the same sum, to reflect the fact that its net assets had been reduced by this amount. WPP made a total impairment provision of €11.7 million in the year.