Turning that around will become an even more critical task in a year when new business opportunities might be harder to find, and when the holding company world is consolidating. “The big six are really the big three when it comes to media at this stage,” said Jay Pattisall, vp, principal analyst, Forrester. GroupM is clearly in that top trio, but WPP’s first-quarter 2025 results — including a 0.9% GroupM revenue decline — lagged Omnicom and Publicis Groupe’s in the same period. (GroupM did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication).

According to some of the industry’s sharpest observers, including analysts and pitch consultants, GroupM has struggled to sell a compelling story to clients in recent years, while its rivals have caught up and surpassed it in scale and momentum. So, what do advertising clients actually want? And what’s so lacking from the GroupM toolkit that major clients (like prize account Coca-Cola) choose its French and American rivals instead?

A simple plan

Today’s marketers must act as firefighters, forecasters and fearless advocates for the power of brand if they’re able to navigate their own corporate organizations and deliver commercial growth. A sprawling multi-brand network is about as welcome as a hole in the head.

With that in mind, Ryan Kangisser, chief strategy officer of MediaSense, told Digiday that their number one demand for agencies is “simplification.”

“As pressure grows on marketers to improve consumer experience and increase shareholder value, forcing agencies (or agency teams) to work with each other is a distraction they simply don’t need,” he said in an email.

“’Operations’ more than strategy has become the new differentiator,” added Kangisser. “Streamlined workflow, automation, process adherence, data accuracy and the right people working more effectively have all now taken precedence as a critical foundation of a strong agency output.”

GroupM’s biggest answer in this regard has been its consolidation program, which kicked off back in 2022 with the marriage of Essence and Mediacom and continued apace last year with the merger of media shop mSix and creative agency The&Partnership.

Consolidations can take time to translate into success, but WPP has the ability to convert. In late March, for example, almost 18 months on from its great consolidation VML won Heineken’s commerce and shopper marketing. Considering the Dutch firm is a top account for Publicis Groupe (the holdco launched its boutique creative shop Le Pub for the brewer back in 2020), it’s evidence that not every win is flowing across the Channel.

Answers to looming questions

Among the big beasts of the media agency world, clients know there’s not much difference between competitors when it comes to the day-to-day tasks of media planning and buying, or negotiating with publishers and tech partners. Though Publicis might currently lead in revenue, and Omnicom will lead in headcount following its merger with IPG, each of the soon-to-be big three have the requisite scale for global clients.

“What sets them apart,” said Ruben Schreurs, CEO of Ebiquity, “is what they can bring to the table during pitches with regards to the inbound challenges of brands.”

Marketers are grappling with emergent forces and trends — changing audience behavior, the opportunity of retail media, the threat of targeting signal loss. A media shop’s response to those different challenges helps it stand out.

Publicis, remember, acquired Epilson, Profitero, CitirusAd and Mars United Commerce to strengthen its commerce media chops, while Omnicom nabbed Flywheel and by the end of the year will add Acxiom to its portfolio. Each acquisition added to their expertise, in clients’ eyes, in key areas such as retail media and commerce.

WPP has been relatively shy in the M&A market since Read took over, preferring to build out capabilities such as Everymile, rather than buy. But its most recent countermove — the acquisition of InfoSum, unveiled just a few short weeks ago — was a return to big-ticket purchases, and one that keeps GroupM in contention for major clients.

The hope is that the data company would further GroupM’s ongoing efforts to stitch together insights across fragmented platforms. According to Pattissall, such capabilities have become “the boiler plate, if you will, for global media at an enterprise level.”

Depending on what comes next, and how effectively the clean-room business is brought into the fold, it could help turn client heads. “It can absolutely be a piece of the puzzle that helps them find their competitive footing,” said Schreurs.

A single story

Having the right capabilities in the right place is important. But what sets one agency apart from another at the end of the day is narrative.

“The picture that agencies are able to paint is hugely important,” said Schreurs. “People want to work with organizations and people that radiate progress and momentum.”

But in GroupM and WPP’s case, the story in recent months has been one of forced returns to work, redundancies (the group shed 6,000 staff in 2024) and departing clients. That narrative overshadows the successes it has had; the network retained well over $4.6 billion in accounts last year, ahead of Dentsu, Publicis, IPG and Havas, according to Comscore.

Recent acquisitions could help change those impressions. But it’ll take charisma and care to turn them into a whole story, rather than just another episode.

https://digiday.com/?p=577476