By Michael Bürgi • March 3, 2025 •
Ivy Liu
This Media Buying Briefing covers the latest in agency news and media buying for Digiday+ members and is distributed over email every Monday at 10 a.m. ET. More from the series →
The two holding companies that reported their 2024 earnings last week — WPP and Stagwell — painted considerably different portraits of the future in the guidance they offered for the rest of 2025. Besides IPG’s dour expectations from two weeks ago, WPP is the only holdco to say it expects to have a rough year.
It’s important to maintain perspective in looking at the two holdcos side by side. WPP dwarfs Stagwell in size and scale, (WPP’s nearly $18.6 billion in 2024 revenue compared to Stagwell’s $2.8 billion), but in this case, smaller actually presents an advantage in showing a greater percentage of growth — specifically, 12% growth (including advocacy, which was huge last year thanks to a presidential election) for Stagwell to WPP’s flat to slightly down result.
The guidance for 2025 revenue growth again shows a considerable contrast — Stagwell is calling for an 8% gain while WPP expects flat to -2%.
Whether WPP is sandbagging in order to impress Wall Street quarter by quarter — after all, Madison and Wall media analyst Brian Wieser noted that guidance does not mean actual numbers — remains to be seen. But there are a few factors to consider in assessing the two holdcos’ performances and expectations.
Both Wieser and Jay Pattisall, vp and agency analyst at Forrester, noted that creative agencies put the primary drag on WPP’s results for 2024 — while GroupM under new leadership in global CEO Brian Lesser actually helped lessen the drop.
“The problem is not the media agency business,” said Wieser. “The problem is that the way the creative agency networks are organized is not for growth.”
Similarly, Pattisall noted that it’s a holding company problem that few of them — perhaps only Publicis — have licked to any degree. The problem, as he sees it, is those creative units are structured to attract the biggest multinationals. “Maybe about 25-30% of the marketplace would be interested in a viable integrated holdco solution,” he said.
That leaves 70% of the market most likely parking their creative accounts with smaller holdcos (like Stagwell) or independent creative shops.
But both analysts see a visible upside in how GroupM has reorganized itself to centralize its structure — and it’s widely expected that WPP’s increased investment in AI via its Open platform could put wind in the media network’s sails.
WPP CEO Mark Read certainly gave the marketplace a sense that that’s where he hopes to see the best growth potential. “We have comprehensive efforts underway to improve our competitive positioning through new leadership at GroupM, with further investment in AI, data and proprietary media,” he said in a statement announcing earnings.
“I think that [GroupM is] in the middle of a surge — they’re in the middle of a comeback, with new leadership [in global CEO Brian Lesser] and new structure that’s centralized in a way that the prior GroupM, leadership was either not interested in or willing to centralize,” said Pattisall. “So I think that GroupM is going to be able to deliver for WPP, but only over time.”
Meanwhile, Stagwell’s quite bullish 8% growth guidance is the result of strong net new business last year, Mark Penn, chairman and CEO told Digiday. “The net new business number is up, nudging $400 million, which is significantly ahead of other years,” said Penn. “And a lot of that new business was won in the second half, and it’s continued in in January and even today.”
Penn said the holdco is also focused on greater growth outside the U.S. — interestingly, the Middle East has been an area of focus. “The Mideast is the new China,” he quipped. And in remarks during the company’s earnings, he pointed to Stagwell’s M&A efforts throughout 2021, which resulted in 11 transactions.
“Our biggest move was our push in the Middle East, a region in which we see a number of opportunities,” he said, pointing to the purchase of public affairs agency Consulum and Israeli social agency Leaders. “The region’s strategic importance to global marketers continues to grow.”
Some of that growth seems to be coming from Assembly, Stagwell’s biggest media agency network. Although there have been a number of executive shuffles under global CEO Rick Acampora, the latest just last week moved Assembly Europe CEO Matt Adams to global COO, while Clare Chapman, Europe chief of staff takes Adam’s former role.
Color by numbers
There’s an interesting contrast in the way retail media operates in the U.K. versus the U.S. Physical stores across the pond are monetizing the shopper experience by generating 60% of their retail media revenue from in-store activations, while U.S. retailers only generate 1%, according to In-Store Marketplace. That amounts to considerable upside for U.S.-based retailers, according, and underscores the importance of shifting focus from traditional ad metrics like CPM to more shopper-centric models, such as cost per shopper.
Takeoff & landing
- Independent Quad/Graphics is partnering with Adalytics to provide media transparency tools for its media agency Rise. The goal is to implement protocols and exclusion filters to reduce ad delivery to obvious non-human traffic.
- Independent ModOp launched a new unit called Cultivate by ModOp that will specialize in crafting digital marketing offerings around the agriculture industry.
- U.K.-based Total Media Group, bought by Serviceplan Group last year to add to its Mediaplus agency network, was renamed Mediaplus U.K.
Direct quote
“A core principle for us is that the best way for brands to communicate with audiences is to actually serve them through utility, and not just talk at them or talk to them.”
— Chris Mele, founder and managing partner of Siberia, on how to guide clients through change.
Speed reading
- Sam Bradley and I looked at how Amazon’s impact on dropping pricing in CTV and streaming has created an opportunity for more small and medium sized businesses to advertise.
- Seb Joseph cut through the BS and translated holding company terminology and phraseology into real speak.
- I covered Forrester’s guidance to advertisers on how to prepare for potential pressure from X in getting them to spend more on the platform, given X’s penchant for legal threats.
https://digiday.com/?p=570668
