U of Digital Newsletter - 6/11/25 (free)

June 4th-June 10th

Below is a roundup of last week’s notable industry news, with summaries and our opinions. At this point, we might as well call it WP-Publicis!

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Top Story 👁️

WPP CEO to Depart After String of Ad Client Defections🔒
Source: The Wall Street Journal
June 9th, 2025

Summary: Mark Read will exit his role as WPP's chief executive by December, ending a seven-year run that saw the British agency holding company lose its crown as the industry's revenue leader. The leadership transition follows a brutal stretch of high-profile client losses—and the bleeding isn't stopping. We just heard yesterday that Mars is yanking its $1.7B media account from WPP Media and handing it to Publicis, only months after Coca-Cola shifted its $800M North American media account to the same French rival.

The contrast with Publicis is pretty stark: The French holding company's stock rocketed upward by more than 80% during Read's tenure, while WPPs has sunk by more than half. Fresh board leadership under ex-telecom executive Philip Jansen apparently accelerated the pressure for change, with the new chairman diving deep into client relationships and internal operations.

WPP's struggles reflect broader industry upheaval as generative AI automates creative work, platform giants expand advertising services, and marketers reduce spending amid trade uncertainty. While Publicis executed a billion-dollar acquisition spree (Influential, Captive8, Lotame), WPP's defensive moves—acquiring InfoSum for nine figures and investing in Stability AI—appear reactive rather than transformative. 

Opinion: Throughout advertising history, agencies have survived by claiming ownership of whatever critical marketing service or tool they could competently and credibly offer as “agents” of their customers.

In the Mad Men era, agencies owned creative production because brands couldn't build TV studios. When media fragmented, they took over planning and execution. When measurement became more complex, they absorbed measurement and analytics. In recent years, they’ve been able to claim ownership of identity and data orchestration. Publicis moved on this quicker and more effectively than WPP.

If you squint hard enough, data orchestration makes an agency holding company look a bit more like a tech company than a services company. That’s why Publicis trades at a significantly higher revenue multiple compared to WPP; they successfully claimed data orchestration through their acquisition of Epsilon (and more recently Lotame)—creating unified, enriched customer profiles using 1st and 3rd party data that can be activated across channels. WPP was slow to the data movement🔒. That’s why Publicis just won the Mars and Coca-Cola accounts and Mark Read is out of a job.

The race for the next movement is already on; it's AI. WPP's Open Intelligence launch and Publicis's massive AI investments signal both companies know what's at stake. But Publicis has a head start with their CoreAI offering. They have stable leadership and revenue growth. WPP is playing catch-up once again with Open Intelligence, they’re losing accounts, and they need a new leader. 

AI is up for grabs, but grabbing it won’t be easy. WPP’s next CEO will have their work cut out for them. 

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That’s It For This Week 👋

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