WPP AUNZ reported a 10 per cent revenue decline, largely due to lost creative agency clients, and a reduction in headcount in FY25. B&T caught up with WPP AUNZ chief executive Rose Herceg to find out why and provide some context on what comes next…and it’s not all doom and gloom.
WPP’s financial results in 2025 are divided. On the creative agency side, the business lost nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of its revenue (now $190.7 million), while the media arm held firm ($402.4 million) in a challenged economy where finding growth in adland was an uphill battle.
The majority of the revenue losses came from VML losing the Defence Force to TBWA, and Ogilvy losing Suncorp as a client to Leo, which led to impairments in the figures for that fiscal year.
The impact of rising cocoa prices also led to some caution in spending from WPP’s FMCG clients. To be fair, the sluggish economy has led many sectors to pause or reduce spending in the past 18 months.
On the media side, WPP agencies have been market leaders. Between EssenceMediacom, Mindshare and Wavemaker, they’ve won major accounts including Suncorp, Lion, HBO Max, BYD, Asahi, Mastercard, the ALP, while retaining L’Oreal, SA Government and more. (Check out EssenceMediacom, Mindshare and Wavemaker’s B&T Agency Scorecards).
As a result of the account losses, WPP’s headcount has declined by nearly 300 to 2,400 across the group.
WPP reported a revenue decline of 10 per cent to 700.3 million and a loss before tax of $35.4 million, which is better than the previous fiscal year loss of 59.1 million.
B&T understands that WPP’s Australia and New Zealand figures have been impacted by transfer pricing—where a subsidiary pays its parent company for services—on the investments the group has made in technology, such as WPP Open. But there is no doubt that the losses from major accounts in its advertising arm have hurt, such is the nature of adland where major accounts shift on a regular basis.
Herceg was frank about the results, but is very upbeat about where the business is at and its direction moving forward.
“I’m excited, I love the clarity with the four units: enterprise, creative, production and media. I love what’s happening with WPP Open and the systems of influence, Infosum and Open Intelligence. It’s all connected and you can see it in the new business results around the world,” she told B&T in an exclusive interview about the results.
“(WPP global leader) Cindy Rose is quite an inspirational leader and I love the way she talks about the future of this business. Things are moving in the right direction, as you can see with the FTSE share price.
“What we’re building is the future of marketing, and that’s how clients are interpreting it. It’s exciting to be talking about where things are going and seeing around corners a little bit more than where we are at the moment.
Herceg noted that WPP has installed one of the strongest leadership teams in the industry.
WPP Media is led by Aimee Buchanan, whose influence has been transformative in guiding its agencies EssenceMediacom (led by Pippa Berlocher), Mindshare (led by Maria Grivas) and Wavemaker (led by Peter Vogel) to become market leaders.
On the advertising agency side, Paul Bradbury (VML) and Kirsty Muddle (Ogilvy) have recently taken the helm and are some of the best operators in the industry.
“They are all highly skilled individuals who have deep subject matter expertise, but more importantly, they are great humans. You’ve got to be both outstanding and kind.
“We’ve got leaders who are just naturally good at working with others. Very collaborative, really smart, dipping into what they need. Technologists, strategists, creative teams. You know, it’s not done until it’s done, certainly. But I feel very good about the direction of travel,” Herceg said.
