With total revenue of 112.9 million euros, the Plan.Net Group once again closed the 2018 calendar year with a record result. It saw a 3.4 per cent growth in sales.

Munich, 30 April 2019 — The Plan.Net Group, one of Germany’s biggest digital agencies, increased its fee turnover by 3.4 per cent on the previous year to 112.9 million euros (2017: 109.1 million euros). The German revenue increased 1.7 per cent to 98.1 million euros (2017: 96.5 million euros), while the international revenue was 14.9 million euros, equating to growth of 18.3 per cent (2017: 12.6 million euros). The agency’s advertising budgets also grew: up by 7.1 per cent from 630 million euros in 2017 to 675.3 million euros – 627 million euros of which is attributable to Germany (an increase of 7.3 per cent). Plan.Net now has over 1,090 employees worldwide.

Manfred Klaus, Managing Director and spokesman for the Plan.Net Group, explains: “The result shows that we are continuing to make progress with integrating data intelligence, creation, media and technology. What’s more, in the last year we did more to expand the array of digital services offered by the entire Serviceplan Group. In doing so, we are extending our core business and making an essential contribution towards the future sustainability of the whole group.”

Steady expansion of the range of services

Over the last twelve months the group has thus continued to work intensively on expanding its expertise in personalisation and automation. Alongside successful advancing its offering in the area of marketing technology, in June it founded the Plan.Net NEO agency, which specialises in data-based content and media integration for an optimally effective media customer experience, as well as carrying out initial projects, such as a campaign for the Starbucks brand on behalf of its German licensee AmRest. In addition, Plan.Net Performance focused on retail media, a discipline still in its infancy, led by Ralf Richter, who came on board as Managing Director of Marketplaces, with a view to driving effective performance solutions in increasingly important marketplaces such as Amazon or Zalando.

Growth driver 2018

One driver of the group’s success was the AI Brand Investor tool, which optimises media planning. It was developed by Plan.Net Business Intelligence in conjunction with Mediaplus. Brand Investor enables cross-media planning for marketing goals and target groups with integrated success forecasting. It looks at 19 media genres, from TV to advertising papers and affiliate marketing.

In its first year, the Plan.Net Innovation Studio used modern approaches and ways of working to develop over 30 prototypes for digital products and services for customers in areas such as voice, AI and mixed reality. Due to demand, the Innovation Studio team took on more staff, and a Studio Hub was also founded at the House of Communication in Hamburg. Together with Plan.Net Campaign, the Innovation Studio also developed the Butterfly Coach fitness app for BF Coach GmbH & Co. KG, setting new standards in personalisation. Together with the complete development of the product, Plan.Net is also responsible for the conception of the brand and all communication initiatives for the product launch.

Plan.Net UX also contributed towards a successful 2018 for the group in its first year of business. Together with implementing a number of user experience projects for Leica and DZ Bank, they gained a top creative mind in the form of Michael Kutschinski, who joined as the new Managing Director.

The connected commerce specialists at hmmh in Bremen also had a strong year with their core business thanks to their expertise in SAP Commerce Cloud, which they implemented for customers such as the Alba Group (a world leader in technology for recycling solutions).

Top position in creative ranking

The agency group’s performance is also reflected in its top position within the digital creation ranking compiled by the German Association for the Digital Economy (BVDW), where the Plan.Net Group took second place, together with Serviceplan. One particular highlight was the Scars of Democracy project carried out by Plan.Net Pulse, which has already won several awards, including a Lovie, a Red Dot and an ADC Global Award.

Outlook

For 2019 the Plan.Net Group is looking to further strengthen its own locations, expand service areas such as governance and data-driven marketing, and ensure better dovetailing and integration between the individual agencies within the group. One key task is to provide all of the Serviceplan agencies with support for digital literacy. As such, there are plans to expand the national and international service areas, focusing on technology, maintenance and media services.