Revenue

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2023

Revenue from Contract with Customer [Abstract]

Revenue

3. Revenue

Disaggregated Revenue Data

The Company provides a broad range of services to a large base of clients across the full spectrum of verticals globally. The primary source of revenue is from Brand arrangements in the form of fees for services performed, commissions, and from performance incentives or bonuses. Certain clients may engage with the Company in various geographic locations, across multiple disciplines, and through multiple Brands. Representation of a client rarely means that Stagwell handles marketing communications for all Brands or product lines of the client in every geographical location. The Company’s Brands often cooperate with one another through referrals and the sharing of both services and expertise, which enables Stagwell to service clients’ varied marketing needs by crafting custom integrated solutions. Additionally, the Company maintains separate, independent operating companies to enable it to effectively manage potential conflicts of interest by representing competing clients across the Stagwell network.

The following table presents revenue disaggregated by our principal capabilities for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022. We reclassified certain brands into the Stagwell Marketing Cloud Group (software-as-a-service and data-as-a-service tools for the in-house marketers) principal capability in the third quarter of 2023. We have reported disaggregated revenue data using the new classification and have recast the 2022 disaggregated revenue data to conform to the current year classification.

		Three Months Ended September 30,				Nine Months Ended September 30,
Principal Capabilities	Reportable Segment	2023		2022		2023		2022
		(dollars in thousands)
Digital Transformation	All segments	$	141,543	$	187,664	$	487,114	$	583,977
Creativity and Communications	All segments	300,026		304,971		851,652		892,416
Performance Media and Data	Brand Performance Network	72,785		67,302		215,691		202,622
Consumer Insights and Strategy	Integrated Agencies Network	45,929		50,256		147,310		156,460
Stagwell Marketing Cloud Group	All segments	57,290		53,598		170,515		144,132
		$	617,573	$	663,791	$	1,872,282	$	1,979,607

Stagwell has historically largely focused where the Company was founded, in North America, the largest market for its services in the world. The Company has expanded its global footprint to support clients in international markets. Stagwell’s Brands are located in the United States and United Kingdom, and more than 32 other countries around the world. Historically, some clients have responded to weakening economic conditions with reductions to their marketing budgets, which included discretionary components that are easier to reduce in the short term than other operating expenses.

The following table presents revenue disaggregated by geography for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022:

		Three Months Ended September 30,				Nine Months Ended September 30,
Geographical Location	Reportable Segment	2023		2022		2023		2022
		(dollars in thousands)
United States	All	$	498,314	$	553,744	$	1,523,420	$	1,650,610
United Kingdom	All	40,323		42,774		116,889		125,950
Other	All	78,936		67,273		231,973		203,047
		$	617,573	$	663,791	$	1,872,282	$	1,979,607

Contract Assets and Liabilities

Contract assets consist of fees and reimbursable outside vendor costs incurred on behalf of clients when providing advertising, marketing and corporate communications services that have not yet been invoiced to clients. Unbilled service fees were $187.4 million and $116.4 million at September 30, 2023 and December 31, 2022, respectively, and are included as a component of Accounts receivable, net on the Unaudited Consolidated Balance Sheets. Outside vendor costs incurred on behalf of clients which have yet to be invoiced were $128.9 million and $93.1 million at September 30, 2023 and December 31, 2022, respectively, and are included on the Unaudited Consolidated Balance Sheets as Expenditures billable to clients. Such amounts are invoiced to clients at various times over the course of providing services.

Contract liabilities represent advanced billings to customers for fees and reimbursements of third-party costs, whether we act as principal or agent. Such fees and reimbursements of third-party costs are classified as Advance billings on the Company’s Unaudited Consolidated Balance Sheets. In arrangements in which we are acting as an agent, the recognition related to the contract liability is presented on a net basis within the Unaudited Consolidated Statements of Operations. Advance billings at September 30, 2023 and December 31, 2022 were $335.6 million and $337.0 million, respectively. The decrease in Advance billings of $1.4 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2023 was primarily driven by cash payments received or due in advance of satisfying our performance obligations, offset by $300.2 million of revenues recognized that were included in the Advance billings balances as of December 31, 2022 and reductions due to the incurrence of third-party costs.

Changes in the contract asset and liability balances during the nine months ended September 30, 2023 were not materially impacted by write offs, impairment losses or any other factors.

Unsatisfied Performance Obligations

The majority of our contracts are for periods of one year or less. For those contracts with a term of more than one year, we had approximately $122.5 million of unsatisfied performance obligations as of September 30, 2023 of which we expect to recognize approximately 30% in 2023, 57% in 2024 and 13% in 2025.