Read added that the AI investment was unlikely to be used to fund any mergers and acquisitions activity to bolster the offer, citing Satalia as leading WPP’s proposition.
In 2024, WPP is targeting savings of $222 million (£175 million) from an efficiency drive. with a further cost saving of $158 million (£125 million) eyed in 2025.
At the start of the year, the merged operations of VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson officially began life as VML, forming the largest creative services agency in the world, while in July, public relations consultancies Hill & Knowlton and BCW will be combined to create Burson.
As a result, AKQA, Ogilvy, VML, Hogarth Worldwide, GroupM and Burson now represent 90% of WPP’s business.
The creation of VML was the latest merger during Read’s tenure as WPP CEO, which has seen him aim to simplify the company’s structure and offer greater scale in tandem. This will continue to allow the business to offer the creative transformation services it began to lay out five years ago while competing with the emergence of larger consultancy operations such as Accenture and Deloitte, which have encroached on the scene.
Improving the performance of GroupM and America
Read has previously spoken about a plan to streamline GroupM—a strategy that the media agency business’ global CEO, Christian Juhl, has been spearheading for some time. This approach has led to agencies Wavemaker, MediaCom and Mindshare becoming more integrated to offer common products and technology platforms.
“It’s going to enable us to make it more efficient and invest more. What matters to clients are great teams and people and client service,” stated Read.
This move is partially aimed improving performance in North America, where WPP recently promoted Sharb Farjami to GroupM’s North American CEO, succeeding Kirk McDonald.
Having won the Nestlé media pitch for Europe, Read said he felt that GroupM had done “very well” globally, but admitted that it had experienced a tougher time in the U.S. due to the number of reviews it faced into 2023.
“We’re looking at a much smoother picture so far in 2024,” he added. “We have a really strong new business pipeline.”
He also pegged recent difficulties in U.S. growth on declining spending from technology clients such as Microsoft, Apple and Google, which are based there.
“We work with three of the world’s four most valuable companies, and we have an unparalleled set of relationships with them,” said Read. “It turns out that in 2023, that was not to our advantage. In the long run, it will be.”
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