GroupM global CEO Kelly Clark has spoken frankly about the abrupt departure of Sir Martin Sorrell from parent company WPP during an interview on CNBC.
Speaking to journalist Sara Eisen, Clark said while GroupM misses Sorrell, the company has “moved on”.
“Our clients are mostly concerned with getting great work, keeping their teams motivated and stable and are focused on helping them,” Clark added.
Asked how it has affected the group, Clark said, “He is the man who built this company yes, it is quite a change but as I said we’re moving on.”
“We see opportunity everywhere we look, whether that be geographically or new categories of clients who are investing aggressively in advertising spending.”
Eisen then questioned Clark on his attitude towards the possibility of Sorrell popping up as a competitor.
“We welcome competition, it helps us innovate, it’s good for clients it’s good for the market and it’s good for agencies like ours,” he responded.
Earlier in the conversation, Clark touched on the digital duopoly and how it’s reshaping and challenging the market.
“We see digital continuing to grow but we see all media companies digitising and moving to the delivery of content in digital platforms.”
Adding, “We do think there are emerging platforms, though calling Amazon emerging may not be accurate, but as an emerging advertising platform we see Amazon and others continuing to offer alternatives to Google and Facebook and we’re excited about that.”
Speaking on the industry as a whole, Clark said, “We expect moderate growth in 2018/19 globally, and a greater number of advertising expenditures going to global digital channels, Google and Facebook in particular.”
“[There are] challenges but also great opportunities of how companies can talk to consumers.
“That’s good for companies because it avoids waste, it’s good for consumers too because better-targetted advertising hopefully is more relevant, more interesting, and more entertaining in some cases.
“While there are challenges were enormously optimistic.”
