WPP takes #1 spot from Omnicom to become world’s biggest marketing group by revenue
January 7 2011, 5:49 am | | 20 Comments
WPP Group has overtaken Omnicom to become the biggest marketing group by revenue in the world, according to new research.
According to a survey by Marketing Services Financial Intelligence, WPP, led by Sir Martin Sorrell (pictured), reported revenues of $12.1bn in 2009 – a 13pc increase on the previous year – pushing it past Omnicom, which recorded revenue of $11.7bn.
Omnicom remains the most profitable of the main groups, however, making a profit of $793m. WPP made $666m. Publicis Group was third in the revenue list, beating Interpublic.
Revenue earned by the major-listed players fell by more than 5 percent as the global downturn continued to bite.
20 Comments
We don’t need a survey to tell us that the WPP group, while #1 in revenue, are collectively the rock bottom lowest retail form of what might laughably be called creativity in advertising, proving the validity of H.L. Mencken’s now infamous line, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American (but you can substitute Worldwide) public”.
Evidently a knighthood can be purchased these days by using the profits of a wire shopping basket manufacturer to buy up a dozen or more below the line ad companies, then engineer sequential hostile takeovers of what were once great creative agencies at JWT, O&M, Y&R, and Grey, turning them all into virtual BTL shops.
He started out as the ‘third brother’ at Saatchis as CFO, so there must have been some affinity to creative work, but it couldn’t hold a candle to the allure of acquisitions and the dumbing down of retail.
Sir Martin indeed.
What horrible monsters they are. Profits first, people last.
From Wikipedia’s WPP page:
“Wire and Plastic Products plc was founded in 1971 as a manufacturer of wire shopping baskets….”
When agencies go public it becomes a money game.
To think anything else you”d need to go back 30+ years.
I hate the fuckers. They’ve destroyed advertising.
We are all so quick to critisize the likes of Sorrell and Wren, but horrendously slow to respond with an alternative. These guys dominate because they understand that this is a commercial business we are in and awards are a pathetic proxy for being paid fairly. Their approach is to scale and commoditise creativity and we stand by and just accept it. How about we get creative about our model and embrace new ways of working?
12 Billion reasons and friends – if you want to produce art, go and become an artist. If you want to make advertising, you are in the business world, where creativity takes a back seat to efficacy. Clients dont care about creativity, they care about results. It seems that WPP client’s are voting with their money and putting it where they’re getting the best ROI.
Sven, how do you measure the ROI of a brand campaign for Nike, or Coca-Cola, Pepsi or Mercedes Benz, Guinness, Audi, or Adidas, Apple or Nokia, Nintendo, Citigroup, Microsoft, Toyota, or even Google? You don’t, at least not in the short term, because creative advertising for brand campaigns does not sell widgets, at least not directly. It sells image. The art of advertising has been instrumental in making each of these world renowned brands what they are today, including the fact that none of them are clients of the WPP group’s agencies, at least not any more.
‘Efficacy’, or effectiveness to the rest of us, is a retail term, like ROI which comes from the world of Below The Line advertising, a WPP conceptual specialty and born from an unfortunate turn in society at large where the bean counters have taken over the artist’s workshop. Now you’re probably unfamiliar with the part of the business that creates the art in advertising which captures the imagination of the public to such an extent that they will not buy any product except the one made by the brand they’ve come to admire. Sure they choose the products because of their quality, but largely as a result of clever, innovative, and yes, Sven, artistic brand advertising. For some of us, business and art are not mutually exclusive.
You see, intelligent clients do care a great deal about creativity, because they realise that the measurement of instantaneous results from their ads is a bit shortsighted, and they’re in business for the long term, with their eyes on much more lucrative prizes.
Back to the accounts department, Sven. You’ll find your ‘results’ somewhere in there amidst the monthly productivity reports. Hurry, hurry, there are more beans to count, and the day is almost over.
Whilst screwing all their suppliers and staff. Sorry Sven, it’s not art, and it’s not ok.
newsflash people – advertising is a business.
CUNTS!
Can I say cunts on this blog?
I worked for JWT in Sydney, Singapore + London. Martin was a frequent visitor to the Singapore office and always spent a good deal of team with the creative department and the work.
In London, I pitched with Martin and he’s a guy that totally understands the role of the work – as one of the previous post says, Sorrell spent long enough at Saatchi for an appreciation of good work to ‘rub off.’
He’s the guy that’s constantly demonised by industry, but in truth – how many of his detractors have ever worked with him? JWT alone employs close to 9000 people worldwide. That’s 9000 salaries and 9000 opportunities to do something great.
I don’t think Martin is standing in the way of that and I certainly don’t think the bloke’s a cunt. There you go, that’s just my opinion.
Sven, back in my day we produced advertising for the church. Now people call it art, while our more creative endeavours ended up notebooks or private collections.
Go figure.
The man took over a small publicly listed company and in the space of 25 years transformed it into the biggest agency network in the world. Along the way he acquired O&M, Y&R and JWT. He’s one of the world’s leading providers of digital services and market research. Now I don’t know how you measure creativity, but in my book that makes him one of the most creative people this industry has ever produced.
Ooops, I forgot, creativity is measured by how many MADC nominations you received. Silly me!
@4:55
No one outside of Victoria, and maybe a few itinerant Sydneysiders even know what the MADC awards are, but most people in the ad world would easily recognise the difference between creative directors who have built the reputations of great creative agencies (in today’s world W&K, Mother, BBH, CPB, Fallon, Chiat Day, 180 Amsterdam, Fred & Farid, Burnetts and Publicis Mojo, once upon a time S&S and BBDO) by doing amazing work that captured the imaginations of the public at large and built brand reputations, versus a CFO who has built a mega-retail BTL agency group by forcing a cost driven mentality on to a few of what had been very innovative worldwide agencies (O&M, Y&R, JWT is still a highly creative shop but struggles against the demands of the WPP). Sorrell managed to acquire creative shops through leveraged buyouts, agencies who had built their reputations on stellar work as opposed to an accountant’s measurement of ROI and ‘effectiveness’ and accountability.
By your measure, Gordon Gecko would be the definition of a ‘creative’ person. This is the art of advertising we’re talking about, not global finance.
Ooops indeed, and what exactly do wire shopping baskets have to do with advertising? The world of the mega corporation has killed a good deal of the innovative spirit in the world in general and it’s having a good go of it with the ad world via Sir Martin and his pernicious WPP.
Silly you is spot on, but it’s not that funny really.
2:27 – Spot on is too right.
You have to look no further than the death of Polygram as a music and filmmaking creativity shop (a very profitable business with the chance of making a long term alternative to the Hollywood sausage culture machine in Europe), strangled by their corporate overlords at Philips, for an example of how a strong business based upon artistic creativity and imagination can be deadened by the corporation’s bottom line and executive greed. In the end, WPP is much the same with its acquisitions, hardly the measure of creativity that 4:55 defines.
How many agencies has WPP grown? Grey, JWT, Ogilvy and Y&R have all shrunk globally since he purchased them. He buys them, strips them to the bone, then runs them and the people into the ground.
2:27 nice try listing MOJO and Leo’s with those other great agencies but, err, no.
Any holding company who buys another will try and make it more profitable in order to sell it at a profit or increase dividends to shareholders. It’s business, once you understand it you tend to care less.
Having said that, WPP have realised bad creative cannibalises profit which is why Y&R (amongst other agencies) are pushing to become the worlds most awarded network at Cannes.
Because Martin knows this translates to $$.
Watch his speeches, especially his Cannes ones.
Anyone who believes WPPs an example of success has no true concept of business. There’s no question it makes a handful of people very wealthy, but it comes at a great cost. The global parasitic model does not have longevity and only a few benefit.