WPP is preparing to reorganize its major creative agency
networks—Ogilvy, VML and AKQA—under a single entity called WPP Creative, according to multiple reports out of the UK on Monday.
The move, expected to be announced later this
month, is part of an ongoing streamlining effort at the holding company.
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Last year the firm restructured its media agencies including Mindshare, Wavemaker and EssenceMediacom,
previously organized within GroupM, under a new entity called WPP Media.
Production operations were similarly restructured under WPP Productions last
month.
A WPP spokesperson said the company had no comment on the reports.
But the firm has announced that it will be releasing full-year results as well
as a “strategy update” on February 26.
WPP has been trying to streamline its far-flung operations for years in a bid to make them easier for clients to understand and
access. When Cindy Rose took over as CEO last September, she said the company hadn’t gone far enough with the effort and pledged to do more.
She launched a new strategic
review designed to further simplify and integrate the firm’s offering while simultaneously improving execution. She also pledged to build a “high performance
culture,” expand the firm’s addressable market and strengthen financial operations.
And she’s under the gun to show results. Over the past year WPP
shares are down more than 60% and have continued to fall since the beginning of the year by about 20%.
Last week, most of the major holdco stocks and others outside
the sector were down amid worries that AI would threaten, not improve, future revenue streams at many companies.
Marketing analyst Madison And Wall notes that Publicis successfully centralized its creative
operations several years ago, sensing correctly “the preferences that global marketers were expressing and the need for scale to free up
resources for internal investments.”
“Centralizing resources should be helpful for WPP as it was for Publicis, at least if doing so sets the
stage for an eventual combination of the creative networks into a monolithic business unit," the advisory commented.
“The disadvantages of complexity and limited scale that follow from operating multiple creative networks no longer offset the advantages of operating several distinct brands within a single agency holding company, such as a potentially improved ability to
attract talent and the higher costs they require. Today’s news is a step
that appears to recognize this reality.”
This story has been updated.