What is Second Floor specialised in?

Brand strategy & positioning, Customer & audience strategy, Brand identity & design, Campaign concepts & big ideas, Campaign execution, Digital & programmatic buying.

How big is Second Floor?

Around 9 full-time equivalents (financial year 2025).

Review: Second Floor

Q: Who are the clients of Second Floor?

Among others Camille, Bionina, Charles Liégeois, Bruxelles Formation, Carlsberg 0.0, Nestlé, Triodos Bank, Krëfel, Propreté.brussels, Form TS - Vorm DC, Fédération Wallonie Bruxelles, Wapa, RMB, Taxis Bleus.

Second Floor, opgericht in 2000, is een creatief bureau uit Elsene. De bezetting ligt rond 9 VTE. De dienstverlening draait om creatie & reclame en content & copy. Sectorieel richt het bureau zich vooral op breed/algemeen (b2c en b2b).

Awards

1× BEA Awards

1

How this agency makes money

Revenue, margin and what an hour of work brings in. Everything on the earning side sits together here.

Revenue trendgross margin per financial year

20212022202320242025

Latest year: € 758.443 gross margin, growth -8,3% against a sector median of -0,2%.

Shrinking

MarginEBITDA / gross margin · value-added coverage

20212022202320242025

Second FloorSector median

EBITDA margin 9,9%, sector median 21,9%. Value-added coverage 1,11 (median 1,23). Value-added coverage sits in the sector-wide grey zone (0.95-1.15): context, not an alarm.

Below sector level

Revenue per headGross margin per FTE, against payroll cost

€ 87.177

Median (2025) € 78.663

Against a payroll cost of € 76.183 per FTE. The ratio between the two is the coverage rate above.

Above the median

Yield levelYield per hour worked, against payroll cost

€ 54

Median (2025) € 49

14.040 hours worked, 1.614 per FTE. Against that sits € 47 of payroll cost per hour worked, leaving € 7 for premises, equipment, depreciation and profit.

Above the median

No hourly rate follows from this. Gross margin is already net of services and sundry goods, which mixes rebilled production with the agency's own overhead, and the accounts do not say how many hours were billable. Deriving a rate from this systematically understates it.

2

Can the agency take a hit

Buffer, cash position and payment behaviour side by side, so you can see where they disagree.

Bufferequity in months of payroll

Buffer: 2,4 months (median 7,7 mo). Equity in the latest year: € 134.207.

Thin buffer

Cash positionAvailable cash, and whether it covers short-term debt

Cash € 241.333. Liquidity ratio 1,13: current assets cover short-term debt in full. Solvency 12,5%.

Tightly covered

Payment behaviourTowards suppliers and towards the NBB

Trade payables correspond to 331 days of supplier credit, sector median 85. The accounts were filed 208 days after closing; the legal deadline is seven months.

Pays slower than average

3

Signals and strengths

Events from the CBE and the Official Gazette over the past 24 months, plus positive markers derived from the figures.

Continuity

No serious signals

Signals in the last 24 months

Zichtbaarheid verschoven · 1 Sep 2026 · Google Autocomplete
Zichtbaarheid verschoven · 1 Aug 2026 · Google Autocomplete
Zichtbaarheid verschoven · 1 Aug 2026 · Google Autocomplete
Thin buffer · 31 Dec 2025 · NBB
Equity covers less than three months of payroll. A limited reserve, and at many smaller agencies the normal state of affairs. Ask how the agency absorbs a setback.

Click a signal for a plain-language explanation. Each signal is a fact from a public source, without the agency's own context. Best to ask them directly.

What this agency does well

Comfortable cash position: 133 days of payroll
Turnover below the median (20,7%)

Each point is a fact from the filed annual accounts, measured against the same thresholds and sector medians as the signals above.

4

All the figures

Reference material, not a starting point. Expand it if you want to read the series yourself.

5 financial years, 2021 to 2025Result, staff and balance sheet

	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
Result
Gross margin	€ 465.127	€ 512.589+10,2%	€ 840.017+63,9%	€ 827.043-1,5%	€ 758.443-8,3%
EBITDA	€ -19.776	€ -60.930	€ 62.305	€ 95.442	€ 74.765
EBITDA margin	-4,3%	-11,9%	7,4%	11,5%	9,9%
Staff
FTE	7,6	9,0+18,4%	10,3+14,4%	9,8-4,9%	8,7-11,2%
Gross margin per FTE	€ 61.201	€ 56.954	€ 81.555	€ 84.392	€ 87.177
Payroll cost per FTE	€ 59.356	€ 55.602	€ 68.809	€ 71.763	€ 76.183
Balance sheet
Equity	€ 9.502	€ 19.043	€ 50.154	€ 112.521	€ 134.207
Cash	€ 423.637	€ 146.779	€ 151.064	€ 415.510	€ 241.333
Liquidity ratio	1,21	1,33	1,21	1,09	1,13

Payroll cost per FTE comes from the social report where available, otherwise from the Remuneration line. Both are gross costs including employer contributions.

What this factsheet does not know

How good the work is. Figures do not measure creativity, strategy or chemistry.
How the client portfolio is spread. Concentration is not in the accounts.
Freelancers and subcontractors are not in the FTE figures. An agency with 40 staff may in practice run with 70 people.
The figures cover financial year 2025, filed on 27/07/2026. At a fast-moving agency reality today may differ.

Based on publicly filed annual accounts (NBB) and official records (CBE, Belgian Official Gazette). An indication, not financial advice. Sector medians calculated on 2 Nov 2026. Sector medians based on financial year 2025: the last year for which nearly all accounts have been filed.

What the agency actually does 23 services

Strategy & Insights

Brand strategy & positioning Customer & audience strategy

Branding & Design

Brand identity & design

Advertising & Campaigns

Campaign concepts & big ideas Campaign execution

Media

Digital & programmatic buying Media strategy & planning Offline buying (TV, radio, print, OOH) Search advertising (SEA)

Social, Influencer & Community

Influencer & creator marketing Organic social content Social strategy & platform mix

Digital Experience & Tech

SEO & GEO Website development Website strategy & UX

PR & Reputation

Corporate communication PR strategy & media relations

Employer Brand & Internal

Employer brand strategy Internal communication Recruitment campaigns

Events, Sponsoring & Activation

Brand activation (incl. guerrilla) Events & experiences Sponsorship & partnerships

Sector focus

Food & beverageRetail & e-commercePublic sector & governmentFinance & insuranceMedia & entertainment

Publicly known clients

Camille, Bionina, Charles Liégeois, Bruxelles Formation, Carlsberg 0.0, Nestlé, Triodos Bank, Krëfel, Propreté.brussels, Form TS - Vorm DC, Fédération Wallonie Bruxelles, Wapa, RMB, Taxis Bleus

Based on IKAg research and public sources. Incomplete or outdated? Let us know.

1

Seniors or juniors?

Payroll cost per FTE is the best public proxy for a team's experience level. Higher is not automatically better, but it says something about who sits at the table.

Payroll cost per FTE

€ 76.183

+18% versus the median

Team composition

8,7 FTE

62% women
38% men

€ 76.183

Median Creatief bureau (2025) € 64.418All agencies (2025) € 62.294

Read with care. Directors and partners invoicing through a management company are not in the payroll cost. At small agencies this skews the picture downwards considerably.

2

Will your team stay?

Inflow and outflow from the social report. This series only counts people on the payroll: freelancers who invoice do not appear in it. A low figure therefore means two very different things, a stable permanent team or a small core with heavy outsourcing. A high figure usually points to short contracts. Compare only within the same type of agency.

Exits 2025

20,7%

Median for this type of agency (2025): 34,5%

Inflow 2025

/

20212022202320242025

Source: annual accounts and social reports (NBB), collected by IKAg. Financial year 2025. Calculations by IKAg; an indication, not financial advice. Sector medians based on financial year 2025: the last year for which nearly all accounts have been filed.

Award-winning work 1 award(s)

2017

BEA Awards BronzeB2C Events · “IKEA Gast” · source ↗

As published by the organising award shows, collected by IKAg.