Stuart Elliott in America.(Brief Article)

Does size matter? That age-old question about mass, usually raised in sexual contexts, is being asked on Madison Avenue -- and Wall Street -- as the giant agency holding companies report their year-end figures for 2000.

To be sure, those results are being scrutinised more closely than usual because of the concerns over the direction of the US economy. But there's also an additional, intriguing aspect to the eternal issue of big, bigger, biggest.

The reports are the first since the pecking order among the holding companies was altered so dramatically as a result of the acquisition of Young & Rubicam by the WPP Group. After that $4.7 billion deal -- the largest in advertising history -- closed in October, WPP was able to surge past its rivals, the Omnicom Group and the Interpublic Group of Companies, to become number one among all holding companies in both billings and revenues.

Before Sir Martin Sorrell gobbled up Y&R, Interpublic led in billings, followed by Omnicom and WPP; in revenues, Omnicom led, followed by Interpublic and WPP. Now, WPP is ahead by comfortable margins in both categories, even with some large account losses at Y&R, which led Sir Martin to acknowledge that his latest acquisition" did not have a brilliant year". Ah, British understatement.

Wall Street analysts pit the holding companies against each other in terms of performance in specific realms such as organic revenue growth, net new business and profit margins. Their tub-thumping enthusiasm for Omnicom stock is derived mostly from its marvellous achievements in those measurements against Interpublic and WPP.

As for the holding company leaders, officially they never admit to being status seekers and shy from making size comparisons against each other. (Off the ...