By Michael Bürgi  •  February 9, 2026  •

Arthur Sadoun, that is. Publicis’ CEO proudly declared at the outset of the holdco’s presentation to investors on Feb. 3, that it has enjoyed “six years in a row of industry outperformance, and we are further widening the gap with our peers.”

And yet, at the end of trading today, Publicis’ stock is hovering just under 80 euros, far below its 52-week high of 108, but still up from its 52-week low of just over 72. This after the holdco announced that organic growth was a healthy 5.9% for the year, all regions it operates in (even mature Europe) were above 4% growth, and it’s humming along at an 18.2% operating margin rate, and showed 2 billion Euros in free cash flow (another reason it’s considered still in the M&A game).

Why would Wall Street penalize those numbers? As Digiday’s own Seb Joseph wrote in his Future of Marketing briefing last week, “That reaction felt less like a verdict on one company and more like a judgement on the category it’s still grouped into. Which is ironic since no firm has pushed harder than Publicis Groupe to frame itself as structurally different to the rest of the holdcos.” 

Lack of creative vision

For one thing, it seems Wall Street just doesn’t buy into the holdco as platform idea. At least that’s how Jay Pattisall, vp and senior agency analyst at Forrester, sees it. 

“Clearly that [stock] drop does not reflect the really strong performance that Publicis as an individual holding company produced,” said Pattisall. “It reflects the investors’ point of view on the broader category and marketplace.”

The problem Wall Street has in understanding, or not understanding the holdcos, goes even deeper, argued Pattisall, who offered a rather impassioned defense of agencies. 

“What I think this ultimately comes down to is the investor marketplace just completely lacks any creative vision whatsoever for what marketing, advertising agencies and creativity do for business,” he said. “To be asking one holding company about their strong results in the context of their competitors shows that they don’t understand the value of the outputs that all of these companies create and its impact on business. They can only look at the very straightforward financial reporting within their own operations and make determinations — and they’re not looking at the broader picture of how agencies create value and how marketing creates value.”

It’s a matter of missing the intangibles, as Pattisall put it. “Intangibles are the product of creative problem solving, things like corporate reputation or employee culture or intellectual property,” he said. “The very things that are created by agency work. Clearly the investor marketplace does not grasp the differentiating power of marketing and brand and creativity. They can only look at the tangibles and make determinations.”

Tom Denford, who founded and runs ID Comms consultancy and deals with all the holding companies, took a more sanguine approach to the gap between perception and reality for the holding companies, but through the prism of Publicis’ results. 

“A new caution is being priced in now — investors are not yet fully convinced about agencies changing their main commercial models,” Denford told Digiday. “Investors see that some agencies will make less from traditional fees and more from reselling (such as principal-based media buying), which investors see might come with some new risks that are not yet fully understood.” 

Principal rears its head 

And there it is — another disconnect between the holdcos and Wall Street, only this time it’s the holding companies being a bit disingenuous. In responding to an analyst asking about the disconnect between clients saying 18% of their media spend goes through principal media channels but Publicis’ results don’t show that, Sadoun insisted that Publicis generates only 1% of its revenue for the group from principal media, and does so in a “totally transparent way with our clients … so they know exactly what is happening.” But he declined to elaborate. 

And yet, ask any consultant or other analyst observing the holding companies, and they’ll tell you Publicis — and Omnicom, WPP and others — rely on principal media to grow their margins, given its profitability. Those consultants will also point out that yes, holdcos may claim they’re transparent in telling clients they’re using principal, and maybe even say what media they’ve bought — but they’ll never relate what they bought that media for, and how much it’s being marked up to clients. 

To be fair, clients don’t seem to care that much about principal’s use, so long as it delivers the audiences they need and doesn’t break the budget. 

Bottom line: the holdcos and Wall Street remain far apart in the value they are perceived to generate for shareholders. It will be fascinating to watch how the stocks of Omnicom — fresh off swallowing IPG — WPP, Dentsu and even Havas will perform when they issue their FY ’25 results, which come over the next four weeks. Based on how Publicis fared, it may not be very pretty.

Color by numbers

In light of political unrest in the country — nay, even the world — there’s no shortage of polarizing content all over TV, social media and elsewhere. What effect does it have on advertising? That’s long been a subject of debate, and ad-tech firm Synexus is offering its take — which is, that it’s not a good thing. Based on eye-tracking and consumer sentiment research, a Synexus study found that ads placed next to polarizing content:

• Generate 25% less attention (even when viewability is identical)
• Create more than twice the amount of negative brand perceptions
• Deliver significantly lower spontaneous recall (22% vs 33%) and prompted recall (36% vs 47%) when compared to ads viewed alongside non-polarizing content. 

Takeoff & landing

• Havas Media Network, in conjunction with Innocean, renewed its media duties for Hyundai Media Group, which includes the Hyundai, Kia and Genesis brands. The renewal covers Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific, and Latin America (Canvas Worldwide still handles North America).  
• Omnicom’s Hearts & Science won Weight Watchers’ media planning and buying for nine markets across western Europe, Australia/New Zealand and Canada.  
• Horizon Next, part of Horizon Media, landed AOR duties for flooring company Empire Today, following a review.  
• Shenan Reed, General Motors global chief media officer, joined IAB Tech Lab’s board of directors, the first brand-side exec to do so. 
• Personnel moves: Dentsu promoted James Bailey from CEO of iProspect UK to CEO of Dentsu Media for U.K. and Ireland … Mediaplus hired Stephen Lee to be its first head of data & analytics, coming from Crossmedia, where he was managing director of audience & data strategy for North America. Mediaplus also hired Matt DeZarlo as group director of media, coming over from EssenceMediacom where he was a group director … Exverus by Brainlabs hired Christie Wasloski to be group media director of the Premier Nutrition Company team, coming over from UM where she was director of integrated planning.

Direct quote

“This test is designed to help us understand how ads can add value for users. Everything we do together should reflect that and our ads principles. With that, any materials you create we ask that you: 

• Focus on user value of ChatGPT, not promotion.
• Keep messaging factual, simple, and helpful.
• Avoid language that frames this as a “launch” or broader product announcement.”

— From an OpenAI document shared with major agencies in planning a test of advertising in its ChatGPT platform. 

Speed reading

• Sam Bradley wrote about Dentsu’s latest move to consolidate media and creative production together, under its Content Engine.  
• I wrote about WPP Media’s partnership with Genius Sports to incorporate the latter’s first-party data into the holdco’s planning and data offerings. 
• Sam Bradley also covered moves by several brands, including Lego, to take programmatic investment in-house.