Ad holding co’s new two tiers – Publicis and Omnicom then the others

Omnicom posted 3.4% organic growth in Q1 2025 although net income fell sharply by 9.7%. Media and advertising led the way with 7.2% growth, while branding retail commerce, PR and healthcare all fell back.

This follows Publicis Groupe’s 4.9% Q1 headline growth figure, with WPP, Dentsu and IPG (still set to merge with Omnicom) all expected to show little or no growth in Q1. So what are Publicis and Omnicom doing differently? From the others and, indeed each other.

Media for both the leaders is currently the driver, helped by their data investments. Publicis, in particular, has doubled down on personalisation. Omnicom, for years going head to head with Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP, seems to have managed the switch in emphasis from creative to media better than WPP. WPP still gets about 40% of its income from creative but its policy of cramming agencies together (JWT, Y&R and Wunderman into VML, Grey into AKQA) has yet to produce growth. Ogilvy has done far better, more or less left to itself.

In media, WPP’s GroupM is no longer all-conquering. The merger of digital specialist Essence with one-time market leader MediaCom has (so far) failed although WPP is trying hard to fix it. Publicis and Omnicom have kept their media agencies more or less as was and this appears to have paid off. IPG’s Mediabrands has never really had sufficient scale outside the US but will boost Omnicom.

Soon (regulators allowing) there will be a bigger Omnicom/IPG sitting on top of the pile with Publicis hard on its heels. WPP, still the biggest by revenue according to some measures but lagging badly in terms of market value, has made it pretty clear that it needs another year to sort itself out. Dentsu may retreat from the world stage to concentrate primarily on Japan and APAC.

At the end of last year it looked likely that there would be more big moves in the sector in the wake of Omnicom/IPG but global dealmaking has pretty much ground to a halt as private equity companies find themselves unable to sell on investments – their bread and butter – in a chaotic Trump-dominated economy.

For WPP anyway, this may buy it time to retrench further before, it hopes, returning to growth in a better-looking market. But it will be playing catch-up with Publicis and Omnicom.