Last year, WPP posted $14.8 billion in revenue less pass-through costs for the full year compared to Publicis’ $14.2 billion net revenue for 2023.
One area where Publicis is closing the gap with WPP is media, according to Brian Wieser, the founder of media and ad consultancy Madison and Wall. He wrote yesterday that, “In terms of net revenue, GroupM had approximately $5.7 billion last year vs. Publicis Media’s $4.9 billion. If current trends persist, the gap between the two might only be around 10% of size by the end of this year. As recently as 2015, GroupM was twice the size of Publicis Media on our estimates.” GroupM changed global CEOs yesterday, appointing Brian Lesser to the post.
In global billings, GroupM is still significantly larger. GroupM’s total client billings of $62.6 billion in 2023 were about $14 billion higher than Publicis Media’s $48.5 billion, according to COMvergence rankings.
WPP declined to comment for this story.
Also read: WPP’s GroupM appoints new global CEO
Publicis Groupe ranked third behind Accenture’s Accenture Song (second) and WPP (first) in terms of 2023 worldwide revenue, according to Ad Age’s 2024 Agency Report.
Macroeconomic conditions such as interest rates affected part of the holding company’s business including Publicis Sapient, which posted a 3.8% decline in the second quarter. The business transformation unit is still winning projects, but clients are delaying implementation, Sadoun said.
“The paradox is that 98% of clients [in the industry] know that they need to profoundly transform their business because of AI,” Sadoun said. “But there are macroeconomic difficulties at the moment, [causing them to] have cold feet or a wait and see attitude.”
The holding company’s growth in the quarter was spearheaded by double-digit growth in its media offering, 6.1% growth in its Epsilon data business, significant organic growth in all of its regions, continued momentum in new business and 11% net revenue growth in tech sector clients.
“The tech sector is starting to invest again but they are making an arbitrage between the partners that can really help them. The fact that we have first-party data that can complement their data, the fact that we can connect uniquely, whatever they do in paid media with their own digital ecosystem, and the fact that we have 45,000 engineers ... makes our proposal truly competitive to others.”