WPP has issued its H1 2025 numbers and, frankly, they’re not good reading.
The headlines are thus. Revenue is back 7.8 per cent year-on-year, down to £6.6 billion from £7.2 billion (AU$13.7 billion and AU$14.9 billion, respectively).
On a like-for-like basis, that reduction does shrink to -2.4 per cent. Revenue less pass-through costs declined 10.2 per cent or 4.3 per cent on a like-for-like basis.
In Q2, its WPP’s like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs shrank 5.8 per cent.
Mark Read, WPP’s outgoing CEO, blamed reduced spending by existing clients and a reduced global pitching market for the decline in spending, as he had with its July trading update.
“On new business, I would say this has been a source of relative disappointment. To be clear, we have had some significant wins—whether that’s the Hero Motor Corp in media or L’Oreal in influencer, TK Maxx in PR, Heineken in commerce, IQ in creative. There have been some setbacks. It has been a much slower new business environment. It’s running at less than half the typical rate at this point in the year,” Read told investors.
He believes that clients have been dealing with “short term issues” such as tariffs and price rises which have impacted pitches.
Arthur Sadoun, CEO of WPP’s big rival Publicis Groupe, said announcing its Q2 results that it had been on an “unprecedented” new business run and had adjusted its growth forecasts accordingly.
Miles of column inches have been devoted to WPP’s performance in the US market, where it has lost significant work for the likes of Coca-Cola. However, its revenue numbers around the whole world make for similar reading.
In Asia-Pacific, its revenue growth was back nearly 10 per cent. In its home UK market, it was back 6.5 per cent—a worse showing than the US. In China, it’s just shy of 16 per cent.
In Australia, even WPP Media’s strong new business performance can’t make up for a revenue growth drop of 6.5 per cent. A WPP Media agency has been on B&T’s New Business Winner podiums in five of the last six months.
WPP is doubling down on its big AI play and tightening its belt to tighten these problems.
Read explained that 85 per cent of WPP’s client-facing staff were now using WPP Open. Brian Lesser, CEO of WPP Media, added that its efforts in AI would take the business from reacting to predicting consumer trends and its federated platform would start to prove its worth in the market.
Over the past six months, WPP has reduced its headcount by 3.7 per cent, equating to around 4,000 roles. WPP’s board also cut directors dividends by half to 7.5p.
But Read, in his final earnings call, struck a defiant tone.
“We have great confidence that WPP Media will not just catch up but will in time lead the market in terms of data-driven media operations,” said Read.
“Taking a step back and looking at our industry, I firmly believe that what we do is critical to our clients, the world’s largest companies. And in WPP’s case, four of the world’s five most-valuable businesses. These global organisations rely on us to help them build their brands, manage their reputations, sell their products, get high rankings in search engines, sell in retail channels, design their packaging identities and produce their work. And yes, increasingly advise on how to adapt in an AI driven world and take advantage of it in their marketing to drive higher returns and reduce cost.
“We’ve said for more than two years that AI will fundamentally change what we do and how we do it. It will also give us new opportunities as technology has always done in the past. I would say that at least half the jobs in WPP today were not in the company 10 years ago, that will be increasingly true in the future.
“I still believe our clients will need the creativity, strategic judgement, objectivity and insights that we, and our industry bring them, if they are going to successfully differentiate themselves from the competition and navigate the increasingly complex media and technology landscape. That’s what our industry does and I believe will continue to do in the future, even if it is in a very different form and with much more data and technology. And just as we’ve adapted in the past, we’ve adapted in the future. Yes, AI will change how we work but if we embrace it fully and use it to enhance our people and human expertise then I believe it will make us stronger, create new business opportunities and create more value for our clients and in the long-run more value for our shareholders as well.
“I believe the critical question is how ready is WPP for this AI-powered future? There, I believe the answer is that we are very well prepared and certainly as well prepared, if not better prepared than anyone in our industry.”
Read’s successor, Cindy Rose, will be the one who finds out, however.
