MultiCultClassics

17539: WPP CPO WTF.

2026-07-17T15:47:31.212-05:00

More About Advertising reported on impending layoffs at WPP, spotlighting the new WPP Media Chief People Officer, who will likely be among key players executing the latest RIF.

The content closed by asking: Is there a People job in [Adland] that doesn’t really mean less people?

That’s a good question, prompting a Google search to define the C-suite function. According to M&A Executive Search, CPO responsibilities include:

• Shaping organizational culture and employee experience

• Developing DE&I (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) programs

• Creating leadership development initiatives

• Driving employee engagement strategies

• Aligning the workforce with the company vision and values

• Building talent acquisition competitive advantages

• Fostering a sense of purpose and belonging

Okay, except no way can a new CPO shape organizational culture and employee experience at a global flaming dumpster that is burning out of control.

DEIBA+ programs have already been abandoned.

Leadership development cannot commence until after dealing with honcho redundancies, resignations, and restructurings.

Employee engagement strategies likely involve mandated rah-rah events.

Expressing the company vision and values won’t happen before WPP CEO Cindy Rose hatches and articulates the grand scheme. For now, it’s chirping crickets.

Talent acquisition competitive advantages are trumped by talent termination.

Sense of purpose and belonging? Nonsense of purpose and belonging would be a more appropriate term.

In short, given WPP’s current death-spiraling direction, the CPO role could be handled via AI—or eliminated entirely.

WPP sets sail for another round of job cuts

By Stephen Foster

WPP is reportedly embarking on another round of job cuts and newly-hired chief people officer at WPP Media Darren Minshall looks as though he’s been hired to lead the charge. Or maybe retreat. WPP Media employs about 40,000 people.

Like all such execs Minshall [above], who’s worked at numerous companies including, back in the day, Havas and MullenLowe, says the right things including “AI isn’t the hard part. Leading people through it is” and “AI should improve work, not blindly replace it” which may reassure some WPP Media folk although the embattled holding company, first under Mark Read and now under Cindy Rose, has made no secret that it sees AI as the secret sauce to put it back on the road to growth.

So will Minshall be the grim reaper, on the lines of George Clooney in the movie Up in the Air, where he plays corporate downsizer Ryan Bingham or someone to bring a little balance to the seemingly AI-obsessed holding company?

WPP is now divided into creative, media, production and commerce and most people expect its creative agencies to bear the brunt of tech-driven changes. When JWT, Y&R and Wunderman were lumped together with VML it was said to be the biggest creative agency in the world with about 30,000 people. WPP also has Ogilvy of course, which seems to be staying above the fray.

But the old GroupM media operation comprising EssenceMediacom, Mindshare and Wavemaker was pretty substantial and numerous too and, although its fortunes have recovered to a degree, it has still to return to winning ways for the world’s really big media accounts, most of which are at Publicis with some others at Omnicom.

Is there a People job in adland that doesn’t really mean less people?

17538: On Farmers Insurance And City Slickers-Hucksters.

2026-07-16T00:12:47.371-05:00

MediaPost reported Farmers Insurance named Havas Media as its new White media agency. Earlier in the year, the insurance company appointed Dentsu Creative as its new White advertising agency.

The only explanation for such mediocre firms winning media and creative duties must be the other White holding companies—Publicis Groupe, Omnicom, and WPP—already service insurance brands.

Referring to the latest campaign platform, the head of creative for Farmers Insurance declared, “The strategy is grounded in a simple belief: our customers’ insurance coverage should be easy to understand, with no jargon, no big words, and no lawyer needed to make sense of it.”

The same probably cannot be said for coordinating efforts between Havas Media and Dentsu Creative.

If there’s a policy covering marketing malpractice, Farmers Insurance should apply pronto.

Havas Media Named AOR For Farmers Insurance

By Steve McClellan

Farmers Insurance has appointed Havas Media as its new media agency of record after a review, the company confirmed today.

Farmers’ estimated annual media expenditure is $51.5 million, according to agency research firm COMvergence.

“Effective immediately, Havas will support media strategy, planning, buying, activation and measurement across Farmers Insurance’s national marketing initiatives,” the company stated.

Earlier this year, Farmers Insurance launched separate creative and media agency reviews. The firm announced that it had named Dentsu Creative as its new media agency in April.

The firm previously worked with both RPA and Zenith on media assignments. RPA had been the firm’s longtime creative agency.

Separately, the company unveiled the first work from Dentsu Creative and new assets that the company said are designed to make its offerings easier for consumers to understand. Changes include the new Farmers Coverage on a Page resource, a snapshot of coverage included in select Farmers auto and home policies. Also new: Farmers Coverage Review sessions.

“The strategy is grounded in a simple belief: our customers’ insurance coverage should be easy to understand, with no jargon, no big words, and no lawyer needed to make sense of it,” stated Eleanor Solomon, head of creative for Farmers Insurance.

17537: WPP Reduces Staff, Increases Exclusivity.

2026-07-14T18:13:42.151-05:00

Advertising Age reported WPP plans to eliminate hundreds more jobs in 2026 as the Roserrection advances.

Advertising icon Jay Chiat famously wondered, “How big can we get before we get bad?”

As this blog previously opined, WPP answered that question for holding companies decades ago. The global flaming dumpster continued answering the query for White advertising agencies, bundling and erasing iconic firms to create mediocre monstrosities like VML.

WPP CEO Cindy Rose now finds herself in the peculiar position of trying to answer, “How small can we get before we get bad?”

There’s something counterintuitive about improving WPP by firing thousands.

Rose can feel relieved DEIBA+ dedication disappeared before she joined, so Elevate28 need not be concerned with outdated imperatives such as fairness, equality, and justice.

Ad Age stated, “Cindy Rose has acknowledged that there will be job cuts and said that savings will come largely from eliminating duplicative finance and HR functions…” Um, Chief Diversity Officers and DEIBA+ teams were typically compartmentalized in the HR department.

It appears Elevate28 will elevate exclusivity, underrepresentation, and systemic racism—except for White women—potentially taking the industry back to 1928.

WPP plans to cut hundreds more jobs this year as its restructuring continues

By Ewan Larkin

WPP expects to cut jobs globally in the mid-to-high hundreds between now and the end of the year, according to a person familiar with the matter, as part of the company’s ongoing turnaround strategy.

Some employees were informed today of their roles being affected at WPP agencies including VML, though the scope of today’s cuts was not immediately clear. WPP and VML declined to comment for this story. WPP had 98,655 employees at the end of 2025, it previously reported.

The layoffs are part of WPP’s broader Elevate28 turnaround plan, under which the company is targeting £500 million ($678 million) in annual cost savings by 2028. CEO Cindy Rose has acknowledged that there will be job cuts and said that savings will come largely from eliminating duplicative finance and HR functions, cutting real estate costs and selling assets. The company has also reorganized into four core units: creative, production, media and enterprise solutions.

WPP’s workforce has contracted sharply in recent years. The British holding company ended 2025 with 8.7% fewer employees, accelerating from a 5.4% decline the year before. That left its workforce at the end of last year at about 1,200 employees below its 2020 level, when pandemic-era cuts reduced staffing by about 6.5%.

Contributing: Brian Bonilla and Jess Nagamoto

17536: OOH WPP VML ODN WTF.

2026-07-13T13:01:27.218-05:00

The social media post depicted above from Outdoor Nation unintentionally underscores how Adland is a messy cesspool.

First, WPP Creative White advertising agency VML hatched the Wendy’s creative campaign to run in Indianapolis. Um, localized messaging is hardly groundbreaking—and this concept doesn’t even qualify as mediocre.

Next, Outdoor Nation boasting about its strategic media plan is pathetic too. Surely the strategizing, planning, and execution could have been handled via AI or any entry-level media wonk who wasn’t replaced by AI.

Additionally, WPP has been positioning itself as a single White operating company, offering simplicity, efficacy, and efficiency to clients. Yet Outdoor Nation is an independent vendor. So, why did VML partner with the Tennessee-based firm versus tapping WPP Media—given the global unit supposedly won the Wendy’s media account earlier this year?

Finally, the social media post and associated PR make no mention of Black-owned media involvement, which is outrageous given Blacks represent nearly 28% of Indianapolis’ population.

In summation, the OOH from VML, WPP, and ODN warrants WTF.

17535: DIY Multicultural Marketing From The Home Depot…?

2026-07-12T22:50:03.507-05:00

ModernRetail at Digiday reported The Home Depot recognizes Latinos comprise a major revenue-generating opportunity, prompting World Cup promotional activities to reach the audience—because Latinos love soccer.

The Home Depot evicted BBDO as its White advertising agency earlier this year, moving marketing duties to in-house resources.

Plus, the retailer is among corporations that bowed to political pressures, quietly abandoning DEIBA+ dedication in 2025.

Is The Home Depot tapping internal or external experts to verify Latino-targeted messages are relevant, authentic, and culturally competent?

Are the multicultural initiatives receiving fair marketing budgets—or crumbs?

Are in-house resources such as Orange Apron Media and Studio Orange predominately White?

Don’t expect official statements—delivered in English or Spanish—anytime soon.

Hispanic shoppers and pro customers are key to The Home Depot’s World Cup retail media strategy

By Mitchell Parton

While The Home Depot is not a sports equipment or sports apparel retailer, its consumer base has given it ample reason to develop a comprehensive retail media strategy around the World Cup.

Customers often come to The Home Depot and other home improvement retailers to solve a problem or take on a project — especially working professionals like remodelers, painters, electricians, plumbers and other contractors.

Taryn Dominie, senior director and head of industry for Orange Apron Media — The Home Depot’s retail media network — said the diversity of the growing soccer fan base mirrors that of its customer base, especially among its pro customers. “A good majority of our pro customers are multicultural, and [The World Cup] just gives us a way to really connect in a deeper, more meaningful way with those pro customers,” she said.

Hispanics make up around 30% of the construction workforce in the U.S, and U.S. Hispanic consumers surveyed by Nielsen in 2024 or 2025 were 87% more likely to say they had watched a World Cup qualifier match in the past 12 months, according to a 2025 Nielsen report. Hispanic individuals are also 39% more likely than the total population to be avid Major League Soccer fans, Nielsen found.

Molly Battin, svp and CMO of The Home Depot, told the Hispanic Marketing Council last month that the company expects “multicultural” customers — led by Latinos — to make up more than 40% of the home improvement category by 2040. “We see the Hispanic market and the Latino community as a huge growth opportunity for The Home Depot,” she said.

For Orange Apron, sports marketing in general has also been an opportunity to drive deeper partnerships with supplier partners through big cultural moments. The company has done College Game Day partnerships over the years as well as deals with MLS, the U.S. men’s national soccer team, March Madness and NCAA, Dominie said. “We’re talking about partnerships that extend beyond our traditional media, whether it be digital or linear, to real, grassroots fan engagement opportunities.”

Orange Apron’s involvement in the World Cup has included in-person events and in-store activations, primarily featuring the paint brand Behr and the power tools manufacturer Makita. Centering its activations around just a couple of brands has allowed Orange Apron to co-create more interactive and tailored experiences, Dominie said.

The Home Depot has hosted interactive houses called “Beckham’s Backyard” at official FIFA Fan Festivals that featured Behr and Makita, allowing them to have a presence at official FIFA events in cities such as Atlanta without being official FIFA sponsors. The activations are named after former soccer player and club owner David Beckham, who also has appeared in national commercials and digital content for The Home Depot during the World Cup.

The activations included a Behr-sponsored digital target-practice game where fans kicked soccer balls, as well as a Makita-hosted station where guests could decorate paper fans, according to Sports Business Journal.

The retailer also collaborated with soccer media network Men In Blazers on a bus that doubles as a studio for Men In Blazers. It has been traveling to World Cup host cities, with signage featuring Behr and Makita. In stores, The Home Depot offered a custom FIFA scarf to customers who bought certain Makita power tools. Outside of the advertising business, on the enterprise level, The Home Depot was doing in-store integrations around the World Cup with sweepstakes components and ticket giveaway opportunities.

“We really went into this knowing that we wanted an integrated, fully omnichannel experience that we were creating for our customers and in partnership with our brands,” Dominie said.

The Home Depot is also having a bus going around to different cities in the U.S. for watch parties where fans and pro customers can participate in events such as T-shirt giveaways and cornhole tournaments, also presented by Behr and Makita. “We want it to be more fun, because it’s a watch party, essentially, but still an opportunity for Behr to engage their top pros, engage the traditional DIY fan base, and talk about what makes Behr and Makita special and relevant — and do it in kind of a fun way, with giveaways and some engaging activities during those fan fests.”

Dominie said The Home Depot has not yet measured the success of the World Cup partnerships, as it is still ongoing, but plans to look at brand lift and purchase intent. She added, however, that the company has found co-branded sports sponsorship programs can increase purchase intent by as much as 40%.

“It’s truly a partnership where we align on common goals, and we co-create opportunities to create value for our customers and [clients’] customers, and create meaningful moments that are unique to what only we can do together,” Dominie said. “It goes beyond sponsorship, and it’s about partnership.”

Andrew Lipsman, a retail media industry analyst at Media, Ads + Commerce, said that because advertising has moved toward digital performance media, it can be easy to forget that good advertising works through cultural relevance and high-quality content reaching wide audiences — such as through experiential marketing and national TV advertising.

“When you can reach the right audiences … and show that there is that alignment around common events or common cultural moments, it creates brand affinity,” Lipsman said. “That brand affinity doesn’t have to translate into a sale at the store at that moment; it just makes you slightly more inclined to visit that store and slightly more inclined to purchase a brand over time.”

Ace Hardware has also found that a high share of its customers are interested in sports such as soccer and baseball, according to Tyler Lusebrink, head of brand partnerships at RedVest Media, Ace Hardware’s retail media division that launched last year.

“Our focus generally has been: How can we partner with our brand partners to really take advantage of capturing some of that engagement from customers during this big cultural moment?” Lusebrink said. Brands wanting to take advantage of the World Cup are executing full-funnel campaigns with “a heavy lean into off-site programmatic, broad awareness-type tactics that can engage with customers throughout their journey,” he added.

These aren’t necessarily campaigns with creative themed around the World Cup — Ace Hardware is not an official sponsor — but they may amplify national messaging that brands are already pushing to reach customers who may be watching the World Cup and related content. ACE Hardware has a media partnership with Epsilon to deploy assets across websites across the web.

“We see the World Cup in cultural moments like this as an opportunity for brands to engage with the customer directly in a high-intent mindset,” Lusebrink said. “They’re online, they’re doing research, they’re looking at game recaps and highlights, and brands know that they can get in front of consumers and engage with them to drive them into their brand.”

17534: FYI ICYMI IPA BS.

2026-07-11T00:26:14.806-05:00

More About Advertising spotlighted a survey from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) showing clients want White advertising agencies to “stretch, grow, and challenge” them.

Yeah, right. Regardless of anything the collected data might claim, here’s a clear interpretation of the client requests based on reality:

STRETCH insufficient budgets

GROW timelines via scope creep

CHALLENGE assumptions and briefs—but execute to assumptions and briefs anyway

Clients want agencies to ‘stretch, grow and challenge’ them says IPA

By Emma Hall

The IPA has got some advice for agencies about what clients value from agencies, and it doesn’t seem to be a “core creative idea,” which was joint 10^th on the list with 73% saying it’s important. AI, however, is right at the top, with 90% of marketers saying AI skills are either critical or very important in both creative and media agencies.

Out of 200 clients surveyed, 83% want “stretch and growth thinking,” but only 48% think agencies are delivering it. There was also a gap between the clients who wanted to have their briefs and assumptions challenged (77%) and the 43% who said their agencies dare to do this.

What else are marketers looking for? These clients were not admitting to prioritising faster and cheaper; instead say they want strategic expertise (80%), quality production (83%) and specialist knowledge of key channels (79%). Conversely the growth of in-housing is, they said, about cost, speed, control and integration.

When it comes to remuneration, agencies will be pleased to hear that two thirds of clients think they are undervaluing themselves. The top preferred alternative (at 54%) is an outcome-based model – one that agencies have long been calling for but find it hard to put into practice. Clients (82%) also want agencies to help them “get the customer heard at board level” which is quite an ask.

The study (with Tracksuit) surveyed clients in charge of marketing budgets of between £1m and £250m. There are five recommendations for agencies:

1. Create better stories to reframe agency value

2. Promote the power of creative expertise

3. Package and promote critical thinking

4. Influence board level decision making

5. Orientate the agency and refocus remuneration around that value

Marcos Angelides, chair of the IPA commercial leadership group and Publicis Media’s MD of L’Oréal Lab & head of AI, said: “Clients want agencies to push their thinking further, challenge assumptions and bring new perspectives to the table. To do that effectively, agencies need to combine creativity and expertise with robust data and insight that guarantees competitive advantage.”

Ed Palmer, IPA director of value, says: “Agencies should take heart in the value marketers attach to the creativity, challenge and strategic rigour that agencies are uniquely placed to deliver. But there’s work to be done to ensure that agencies deliver what clients truly value in them, and that that value is recognised and compensated accordingly.”

17533: Thank God It’s French Court Day.

2026-07-10T11:47:06.455-05:00

MediaPost reported an appeals court in Paris ruled Vincent Bolloré did not control Vivendi when the company split into four separate enterprises. No, Bolloré probably delegated control to his sons and privileged kin.

French Court Rules Vivendi Not Controlled By Bollore

By Steve McClellan

Vincent Bollore dodged a $9 billion-plus bullet earlier this week when an appeals court in Paris ruled that he did not exercise control over media conglomerate Vivendi during the period when the company divided itself into four separate companies. They included a newly independent Havas, now publicly traded on the Euronext Amsterdam Exchange.

The news was reported by several European outlets including Reuters. One investor group, CIAM, said it would appeal to the French Supreme Court, reports indicated.

The issue of Bollore’s control of the company has been the subject of minority shareholder lawsuits and appeals to regulatory bodies since the company split apart in 2024. Each side has won a couple of rounds.

It’s not clear when the legal battle will end, but if it is determined that Bollore did exercise control, French laws would require Bollore Group to make a tender offer for outstanding minority shares of Vivendi and its spin-off companies. Analysts peg the value of that tender at between $9 and $10 billion.

Vivendi issued a statement confirming the Appeals Court decision, saying it “fully confirms” an earlier court analysis that Bollore did not control the company. Bollore did not issue a comment.

17532: On Exclusivity, The Omnicom Inclusion Breakfast, And Less.

2026-07-09T23:02:29.505-05:00

Reflecting Adland, Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity displayed declining DEIBA+ dedication.

The Omnicom Inclusion Breakfast was an exclusive affair with registration-only admission. Social media posts feature performative propaganda starring equality advocates—a literal minority group—spouting clichéd cultural commentary.

The DEIBA+ conversation has not evolved at all, pushing political and professional platforms that have proven ineffective.

PRovoke Media Editorial Director Maja Pawinska Sims provided the following perspective:

The conversations that became quieter

Sometimes the biggest story at Cannes is what nobody is talking about. Only a few years ago, DEI and sustainability were impossible to avoid. This year, both were noticeably less prominent across the official programme and the wider festival.

That doesn’t mean those issues have disappeared, nor that organisations have stopped caring about them. But the centre of gravity has undoubtedly shifted, which made spaces such as Propeller’s Empower Lounge feel all the more valuable. Away from some of the louder conversations around AI and commercial transformation, it continued to provide a platform for thoughtful discussions about inclusion, leadership, wellbeing and the broader purpose of communications.

It was also encouraging to see The Female Quotient expand onto the beachfront for the first time, although many delegates lamented the disappearance of Inkwell Beach, and of course the immensely popular IPG Women’s Breakfast/Diversity Breakfast, is no more after the Omnicom acquisition.

If DEIBA+ were an awards category, Cannes Lions could not legitimately identify a single winner, as any submitted work would constitute a scam entry.

17531: On Solving WPP Enterprise Solutions.

2026-07-08T23:59:11.665-05:00

More About Advertising wondered about WPP Enterprise Solutions, a unit in the global flaming dumpster, newly launched with self-promotional hype full of technobabble and straight-up bullshit.

Much of the pitch appears to be lifted from recent Harvard Business Review articles. Is it AI-generated content or blatant plagiarism?

Clients should avoid seeking solutions from an enterprise seemingly incapable of solving its own problems—or clearly articulating its offerings, benefits, and value in original style.

That’s Advertising 101. Ask anyone at WPP White advertising agency Ogilvy, named Network of the Year at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Just saying.

WPP launches Enterprise Solutions – in Nerdish

By MAA Staff

WPP is launching its new Enterprise Solutions suite, one of the pillars of Cindy Rose’s new WPP. At least that’s what we think it is. One thing we’re learning about techies is that they protect their cult with a private language which only they understand and which excludes most of us.

This is what Enterprise Solutions does (is the nomenclature like water solutions for plumbers?)

AI Transformation Consulting – Helping organisations realise AI value through strategic advisory, architecture and agentic systems.

Agentic Commerce – Converting brand equity and product truth into machine-readable signals that shape how AI agents discover, evaluate and recommend brands.

Owned Intelligence – Converting client-owned data into strategic, AI-ready competitive assets that fuel brand-specific and commercially-attributable results.

Adaptive, Real-time Relationships – Pairing first-party data with AI to anticipate and personalise every interaction, deepening loyalty and growing lifetime value.

Intelligent Content – A closed-loop operating system that plans, produces and activates content using intelligent automation.

Does anyone know what, if anything this means? Translator please.

17530: How Coke Can Differentiate Publicis Groupe And WPP.

2026-07-07T00:43:32.633-05:00

Digiday opined on The Coca-Cola Company’s global media, data, and technology review staging a Publicis Groupe versus WPP faceoff.

In Digiday’s perspective, it will boil down to Coke choosing a White holding company or single White operating company for their respective positions regarding data.

If the decision is focused instead on performance and trust, Publicis Groupe has the advantage, based on its self-promotional hype.

As for global flaming dumpster WPP, well…

Besides, there’s plenty of data to prove awarding the business will be determined by which contender best appeases the client with exaggerated promises, lavish presents, and underhanded proposals.

‘One of our core areas’: Ahead of global agency review, Coca-Cola’s CFO focuses on data matching

By Seb Joseph

One of Coca-Cola’s core focuses these days is data — specifically how it matches its own data against what its partners hold.

John Murphy, the advertiser’s president and CFO, made the point at the DBAccess Global Consumer Conference on Thursday.

He added: “Today, one of our core areas, how do we take the, let’s say, first-party data that we own — it’s proprietary, it’s ours — and how do we marry that with the customer data that these proprietors who are bottlers, given the amount of engagement they have with millions of customers every day. Or how do we work with some of our partners, whether it’s in the U.S. with Publicis or WPP in other parts of the world, to bring that together and then to create a sort of a new intelligence.”

While it’s hardly a fresh observation, it is a timely one. Coca-Cola is about to kick off a global agency review covering media, data and technology, triggering a tussle between Publicis Groupe and WPP, as Ad Age first reported. It will exclude North America, where the advertiser already works with Publicis as well as Japen and Korea where it works with Dentsu, the company said in an emailed statement. Moreover, it will not include global creative and PR disciplines, which will remain with WPP.

The review, which is being managed by Mediasense, will begin in July, with the decision expected to be announced in the fall. When it lands, it will settle (at least for now) which of the two prevailing holdco views on data a major advertiser buys into. Publicis has spent years building a proprietary data stack across Epsilon, Lotame, LiveRamp and its CoreAI operating system, and will no doubt pitch itself as a tech company that also does media. WPP, on the other hand, will do the opposite. Rather than owning the data, it acquired InfoSum to connect data sources across the ecosystem without centralizing them, a privacy-safe collaboration model it has since folded into GroupM and WPP Open.

Put another way, one holdco bets on owning the database, the other on owning the connective tissue. The Coca-Cola review therefore is about as direct a test of those two philosophies as it gets, and one of the more consequential. A Publicis win would be a timely endorsement of its data stack bet, arriving just as it moves to close the LiveRamp acquisition. A WPP win would be a crucial jolt for a holdco that has been searching for consistent momentum after sluggish growth and too many false dawns.

“The Coca-Cola Company is evolving its digital-first marketing operating system for future growth,” reads its statement on the matter. “This includes a shift in mindset from traditional media planning to the emerging ways we need to reach consumers through technology, including agentic tools.”

Whatever it signals about the holdco model, the review could just as easily expose the trap both companies risk walking into. They’ll lead with AI and data because that’s what clients want to hear. But turning combined first-party data into something that actually drives decisions is ultimately a people problem as much as a technology one. The hard question is whether either agency will have the senior talent capable of interpreting what the tools produce.

“To unlock real value from AI, you’ve got to use your own data as a base,” said Robert Webster, founder of AI marketing consultancy TAU. “The real battleground is how you show Coca-Cola how your data, your approach and the AI it plugs into actually matters. Publicis has won a lot of business in Europe, but has been — in my opinion — less AI-focused than perception might suggest. WPP, meanwhile, has very much focused on larger clients, with EssenceMediacom particularly strong on CPG, which again is relevant here. On Europe and the U.K. I’d give WPP a slight edge, on Asia definitely Publicis. But crucially, what a client really wants is to make sure they own their data and their method to execute against it — and neither of them properly delivers that yet. On data ownership, LiveRamp gets Publicis closer.”

That’s the real issue for the largest companies. A Bain & Company survey of 951 companies found the top reason AI programs underperform is that companies still can’t reliably reach their own data after a decade and hundreds of billions spent on modernisation. MIT found the same wall from a different angle: 95% of corporate GenAI pilots stalled, mostly on tools that integrate badly. Through that lens the Coca-Cola review becomes a test of which holdco can actually solve a plumbing problem most enterprises haven’t cracked.

“For advertisers there are valid reasons to want an agency plugged deep into their data to do AI work, but they also need to keep architectural sovereignty and the freedom to switch,” said Tim Norris-Wiles, head of go-to-market at data startup Neuralift AI. “Those goals are at odds. It gets harder still for any brand running a single global architecture but with different agencies across markets, where every integration is also a dependency they have to maintain and be able to unwind. The holdcos that win long-term therefore won’t be the ones that lock clients in hard, they’ll be the ones that can deliver value while leaving the client’s architecture portable.”

17529: On Trust, Distrust, And Mistrust At WPP.

2026-07-06T11:23:04.573-05:00

More About Advertising spotlighted troubles at WPP Media, including:

• The former head of WPP’s media operation in China received a life imprisonment sentence for charges stemming from a $176 million scam—and two others were also hit with stiff sentences.

• The former head of a GroupM division in New York City filed a ‘whistleblower’ lawsuit, charging he was fired for raising red flags that WPP’s trading division illegally retained profits that should have been passed back to clients.

Additionally, there’s a class-action lawsuit filed by shareholders charging WPP with deceptively sugarcoating profits last year.

It all makes for bad optics, especially given the single White operating company is restructuring itself as a media-first enterprise.

WPP CEO Cindy Rose declared, “We want to be a trusted growth partner for our clients in the era of AI.”

The corporate website proclaims, “WPP Is The Trusted Growth Partner For The World’s Leading Brands.”

Okay, except WPP displays internal distrust. Media is globally viewed with suspicion and concern by clients. And Adland practitioners are consistently rated among the least-trusted professionals.

Trust is earned. So is distrust and mistrust.

WPP’s China crisis – why is the holding company so accident-prone?

By Stephen Foster

Any business handling millions, sometimes billions, of other people’s money on ultra-tight margins is open to fraud, indeed it may be tempted to try itself.

The former boss of WPP’s media operation (GroupM) in China has been sentenced to life imprisonment, accused of masterminding a $176m scam. Two others have also received stiff sentences. The Chinese judicial system is hardly famed for its transparency but WPP has been careful to distance itself from the three employees. Its business in China, hardly a surprise, has been hammered.

That isn’t the only cloud on the horizon though. Over in NYC there’s what’s being termed a $100m ‘whistleblower’ lawsuit from Richard Foster, one-time head of GroupM’s Motion Content Group (whatever that was) alleging that WPP fired him for raising concerns that WPP’s trading division used client spending power to secure cash rebates and volume-based discounts from media owners, illegally retaining profits rather than passing them back to clients. Ring a bell?

Also in NYC, there’s a class action by angry shareholders claiming the company failed to appraise them fully of the collapse in profits last summer which, ultimately, led to the departure of CEO Mark Read. Making overly-optimistic noises can be costly.

Finally (and there may of course be more) WPP is involved in a long-running dispute in Kenya with the founder and former CEO of WPP Scangroup Bharat Thakrar alleging that WPP, among other things, has been using Scangroup money to prop up the holding company, to the detriment of Scangroup. It’s redolent of other far-flung WPP disputes including its agencies in Australia.

Now WPP may deal with all these issues and emerge smelling of roses but they surely affect its ability to trade its way out of current problems. They must be especially galling for all those people at Ogilvy and VML who have just notched up a stellar Cannes Lions, seemingly doing a great job for their clients despite all the noise (and worse) around them.

WPP’s biggest problem – in a competitive field – is debt, around £3bn against a total company value of £2.64bn. New CEO Cindy Rose’s first job is to reverse these positions. But it’s hard to see what else she can sell to do it. It’s already sold out of research (Kantar) and PR (FGS Global) without making much of a dent in the debt. That in itself is something of a puzzle.

Then there’s what we might politely called proprietary media trading (or broking), the smokey activity behind many of the above issues, including China where media deals seem to have been carved up in a Shanghai poker game. Almost certainly more such cases will emerge, partly because no-one seems to know whether it’s legal or not. The US courts may help us out.

This Cannes Lions should be a turning point for WPP. But there’s still a lot of old baggage lurking in the undergrowth.

17528: When It Comes To DEIBA+ Progress, Adland Networks Do Not Work.

2026-07-05T11:15:45.173-05:00

During a 2009 heat shield event, former Ogilvy North American Chairman John Siefert admitted Adland was “not exactly leading the way” in DEIBA+ progress.

Can’t help but think of Siefert’s admission while viewing the image above featuring Ogilvy celebrating its Network of the Year honor at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

It’s sadly safe to say Adland—via White advertising agencies like Ogilvy—is leading the way in systemic racism.

17527: Putting The Con In Content.

2026-07-04T19:56:37.274-05:00

Contentful helps marketers personalize, optimize, and create standout digital experiences at scale—advertising their services on trade publications like Adweek.

Such media placement probably intrigues shitty clients seeking fast and cheap content. Meanwhile, drones at White advertising agencies are undoubtedly annoyed to see Contentful actively stealing their jobs.

BTW, the Contentful promotional campaign sucks, seemingly produced by AI—or amateurish hacks.

17526: Bored On The Fourth Of July.

2026-07-03T18:42:09.859-05:00

Adweek published a perspective on producing Fourth of July patriotic marketing the right way—and no, that doesn’t mean the right-wing way.

The author cautioned against clichés and performative propaganda, emphasizing the imperative for authenticity.

Gee, the advice mirrors what is annually repeated about Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Pride Month, etc. Amazing that the author didn’t declare, “Independence should be celebrated on the Fourth of July—and all year long.”

Except Fourth of July campaigns likely receive four times the marketing budgets versus campaigns of color (skin tones and rainbows). It’s comparing cash to crumbs.

God bless America.

For America250, Patriotic Marketing Has to Look Beyond the Cliches

July 4th is a reminder that marketing can’t manufacture authenticity.

By Nataly Kelly

Last week in Cannes, authenticity (again) emerged as the industry’s favorite answer to seemingly every question about AI. Want to preserve trust in the AI era? Need to produce quality content that isn’t AI slop? The answer to all that ails you is authenticity.

The problem is that, in reacting to AI, we’ve gradually narrowed its scope. We debate the legitimacy of AI-augmented content, whether creators will help us relate to customers in a more real way than celebrities, and whether Tagline A feels more rooted in humanity than Taglines B-ZZ.

We spend far less time asking a more foundational question: Did the business behind that campaign actually earn the right to tell a story it wants to tell?

July 4th and America250 offer marketers a useful litmus test: Is patriotic marketing too polarizing?

The right way to wave the flag

To address the elephant in the room, yes, nationalism is more politically charged than it used to be. More than half of Americans (56%) say the American flag has become more polarizing over time.

For years, the Fourth of July playbook was remarkably consistent: fireworks, military flyovers, and flags printed on the same products Americans buy every day. But today, that formula carries more risk, leaving some brands wondering if they should actually do anything for America250 at all.

Despite the politicization of, well, everything, Independence Day remains a source of national pride. About half of Americans (49%) say patriotic branding makes them view a brand more positively. Only 3% believe brands shouldn’t celebrate America at all.

Consumers want to feel patriotic, but they want it to feel meaningful rather than performative. Some of the most interesting campaigns of the year are striking that chord.

Coca-Cola, for example, is doubling down on community. Yes, they are printing flags on a limited edition run of cans. But the brand is also getting out into communities in a year-long campaign by committing to 250,000 volunteer hours focused on tackling food insecurity, sustainability, and youth empowerment. They also created a mural initiative with local artists in cities across the country.

It’s a campaign that gives consumers the ability to celebrate in small ways within their own communities.

Authenticity starts long before the campaign does

Increasingly, as consumers wonder if what they are seeing is AI-generated or if a brand really deserves their trust, authenticity no longer belongs to the creative department. It belongs to the business.

When we asked Americans which brands best represent the country, they named Ford, Walmart, and Coca-Cola, all of which are brands deeply embedded in everyday American life. They’ve earned this connection, not because they flew the biggest flag, but rather because they make everyday life possible and enjoyable to a huge percentage of the population.

But it’s not just where people shop and what they buy that helps them form opinions about a brand. Sometimes, brands show up in consumers’ lives in ways that actually put money back in their wallets. Our research found that nearly two-thirds of Americans trust companies that invest in local jobs more than companies that simply run patriotic advertising campaigns. Consumers reward brands that demonstrate patriotism through community impact.

Another way to build relevance is simply to remind consumers of how a brand helps them enjoy what they already love. Through its “Taste of America” campaign, Kraft Heinz, an official sponsor of America250, connects summer and celebrations back to the brand through depictions of cookouts that are made possible in part by its products.

Patriotism doesn’t have to look like flags and fireworks. And the conversation around authenticity shouldn’t stop at creativity—it should permeate every part of the business that ultimately connects to how consumers experience the brand.

17525: IBM Reboots Advertising And Media, Boots WPP.

2026-07-02T22:43:56.718-05:00

Advertising Age reported IBM named Stagwell its White holding company for creative duties, which will be co-handled by White advertising agencies Anomaly and Code and Theory.

Incumbent WPP White advertising agency Ogilvy declined to participate in the review, just as incumbent WPP Media declined to participate in an earlier media review that was won by Omnicom.

Surely serious behind-the-scenes politics persuaded WPP units to give up continuing roughly 32 years of service for IBM.

After all, Ogilvy just won Network of the Year at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, establishing its creative chops far exceed those of Anomaly and Code and Theory—or any White advertising agency in the Stagwell stink factory.

Ad Age headlined AI capability and speed won the business for Stagwell.

Huh? WPP boasts unmatched and unprecedented AI ingenuity. Plus, the corporate website declares WPP Production delivers content at speed and scale, blah blah blah.

Whatever true circumstances ignited the scenario, WPP probably now thinks IBM stands for Insane Business Massacre—or Immense Bowel Movement.

IBM hires Stagwell as lead creative partner—AI capability and speed won out

By Brian Bonilla

IBM has selected Stagwell as its new lead creative partner following a competitive review that ended the tech company’s roughly 32-year relationship with Ogilvy. The assignment comes as IBM seeks to sharpen its positioning around enterprise AI and accelerate its marketing efforts.

Stagwell’s Anomaly and Code and Theory will jointly lead the account, helping evolve IBM’s “Let’s Create Smarter Business” campaign across channels and geographies.

WPP’s Ogilvy previously stated that it declined to participate in the review, which was led by consultancy 3C Ventures.

IBM named Omnicom its global media agency earlier this year. In that review, WPP Media was the incumbent and declined to defend the business.

IBM marks a significant win for Stagwell, the 13th-largest agency company according to Ad Age Datacenter, which has been looking to prove its global chops. This year, Stagwell has secured key creative wins with Mondelēz International, Hershey and gaming entertainment company Allwyn AG.

The appointment comes as IBM expands its enterprise AI offerings with new products unveiled at its Think 2026 conference in May. The new agencies will focus on promoting some of IBM’s tools, such as Watsonx Orchestrate, which helps enterprises manage and deploy AI, and IBM Bob, an AI coding tool for businesses, along with brand positioning work.

The review prioritized three capabilities: strong creative, strong tech and an ability to help IBM “move in a lot more flexible way, with a lot more speed” than it “had in the past,” said Jonathan Adashek, IBM’s senior VP, marketing and communications.

“Flexibility is about taking advantage of opportunities that come quickly and really shortening the creative cycle for us,” Adashek said.

Those requirements reflect broad changes underway within IBM. The company has increasingly embraced AI across its own operations, positioning itself as “client zero” for its technology. Adashek said IBM has removed $4.5 billion in costs over the past three years, largely through AI and automation, and plans to remove another $1 billion this year.

Before the introduction of AI, IBM’s marketing creatives spent 80% of their time on derivative assets, he said, noting that the amount has been reduced “substantially” to below 40%.

A major factor in the decision was “The Machine,” Stagwell’s agentic operating system that connects with a client’s existing tools. Adashek said he was impressed that The Machine integrated insights from across the broader Stagwell network, citing The Harris Poll as an example. “The insights they can bring from other parts of the Stagwell organization—to not make it just an Anomaly and Code team … I think that’s essential,” Adashek said.

Just as important was Stagwell’s willingness to work within IBM’s own systems rather than require the client to adopt an agency-owned platform. “We’re going to work together with the client on enhancing their tech stack, rather than pushing them into a closed or walled garden on our part,” said Stagwell Chairman and CEO Mark Penn.

For IBM, that philosophy closely mirrors how it works with enterprise clients. “Our data is our data, and it’s sort of that special sauce that gives us the IBM flavor,” Adashek said.

Rather than dividing creative responsibilities among multiple shops, IBM wanted one lead partner capable of supporting the entire business.

“Fundamentally, as an organization, if we have too many different angles, then we’re not aligned at a central point. Before too long, people don’t understand what you’re trying to do, and then you stand for nothing,” Adashek said.

IBM expects the first work from the partnership to debut around the US Open in August, including new TV creative as part of a broader campaign spanning multiple channels. IBM is the official AI and cloud partner of the US Open.

The IBM creative pitch process

Adashek said that he attended early chemistry meetings and received reports after each pitch meeting. Neither he nor Penn sat through pitch meetings. Instead, IBM intentionally left the evaluation to the executives who will manage the relationship day to day.

“I wanted the team to be engaged,” Adashek said. “The team was so compelled by the content, by the approach, by the tools, they said this is the way we need to go.”

Penn said his own role was limited to reviewing work behind the scenes and ensuring that the agencies had the right mix of capabilities.

“I’ve been around enough to know that this is never about the CEOs,” Penn said. “It’s about the people on the account team.”

17524: All Day I Dream About Sacks.

2026-07-01T10:08:16.540-05:00

MediaPost reported Omnicom won the estimated $560 million global media account for adidas, beating Publicis Groupe and incumbent WPP in a competitive shootout.

WPP CEO Cindy Rose should probably start looking for some running shoes. Ditto lots of WPP Media drones soon to be sacked.

Omnicom Wins $560 Million Adidas Media

By Steve McClellan

Last week Omnicom left Cannes with a total of 160 Lions. This week it collected an arguably more lucrative prize: the global media account for German athletic footwear and apparel giant adidas, sources confirm.

Omnicom Media Group agency PHD will lead the account.

Adidas’s annual media expenditures are estimated at $560 million by agency research firm COMvergence.

For the last eight years adidas has worked with WPP agencies. Mediacom won the account in 2018 after a global consolidation review.

WPP and Publicis are said to have pitched for the adidas business.

Neither adidas nor Omnicom representatives returned queries seeking comment before this posting.

17523: On Life—And Lifetime Achievement—In Adland.

2026-06-30T00:23:15.620-05:00

MediaPost spotlighted Susan Credle, who the trade publication identified as Interpublic Global Creative Advisor—despite IPG’s erasure after being acquired by Omnicom.

Oddly enough, Credle’s LinkedIn profile displays her present experience as Interpublic Global Creative Advisor and Omnicom Creative Advisor.

Perhaps Credle is a fractional Planetary Creative Advisor. Or maybe she’s also in limbo, waiting for Omnicom to sort through restructurings, redundancies, and RIFs resulting from the acquisition.

Credle came to Cannes to collect the Lion of St. Mark lifetime achievement award.

Yet now Credle admits being uncertain about her next work-life stage.

That’s life in Adland today.

Credle At Cannes: ‘Fast And Cheap’ Equals Ad Pollution

By Steve McClellan

Ad agency veteran and current Interpublic global creative advisor Susan Credle told a Cannes Lions audience Monday morning that while there’s been much talk lately that consumers care less about brands these days, maybe it’s the industry that needs to care more about them.

Credle, this year’s recipient of the Lion of St. Mark lifetime achievement award, said, “We’re in a slightly weird place right now,” where all the focus on AI and technology has led the industry to focus a bit less on brand building.

“Fast and cheap,” she said, amounts to so much “ad pollution.” Refocusing on brand building, she added, is perhaps the best way to regain consumer trust.

On stage with Paul Kemp, Cannes Lions Chief Content Officer, Credle talked about her formative years and passion for cheerleading and acting in high school. She was declared “biggest flirt” during her high school years, which she interpreted as “enjoying being around people.” Cheerleading, she added, may have been her first copywriting job because it involved writing cheers promoting a team and urging them to win.

In college she learned quickly that journalism—at least the stick-to-facts kind—wasn't a passion of hers. She was steered to the advertising department where she could focus on a blend of “creativity and outcomes.”

In 1985 she headed to New York City “with a suitcase and a dream.” She landed an entry level job at BBDO (filling in for receptionists who were on bathroom breaks), and ended up staying for more than two decades.

At BBDO she landed on the Mars account where she had the audacious idea of killing off the M&M characters because she believed they were boring. That idea didn’t fly and she (and her art director partner Steve Rutter) then proposed developing the characters into a comedic ensemble with distinct and funny personalities. The problem there—no budget to do that for TV, at least at first. Instead the characters were merchandised and their personalities began to blossom via quips on T shirts.

The characters’ popularity took off, and they were developed and integrated into TV campaigns led by Credle and Rutter. At one point NBC wanted to have the characters introduce its Thursday night lineup. It was at that point, Credle realized that the characters had entered the cultural zeitgeist. “Hollywood came calling us,” she noted, not the other way around.

Later this year Credle will be leaving Interpublic for a new chapter. For now, Credle said she’s not sure what’s next. Stay tuned.

17522: WPP CEO Delivers Award-Winning BS.

2026-06-29T15:01:09.847-05:00

More About Advertising spotlighted WPP at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, reporting VML and Ogilvy—White advertising agencies within the global flaming dumpster—scored significant recognition and trophies.

MAA reckoned WPP would have earned a Creative Company of the Year/Holding Company of the Year threepeat if the dubious award hadn’t been nixed.

The hoopla prompted WPP CEO Cindy Rose to uncharacteristically comment on creativity, including the following bullshit:

“Creativity is our superpower—it’s what builds brand differentiation and trust for our clients. WPP is home to the world’s most iconic agency brands, and this year at Cannes Lions that showed: two creative networks in the top three, the number one PR agency, the most awarded media group for a second year, and so much exceptional work that came from our creative, media, production, and PR agencies working together.

“This is our integrated model in action, delivering growth for clients. I couldn’t be prouder of our talented people across the world, and I want to give a massive thank you to our extraordinary clients who partner with us to deliver brave, ambitious work.”

Interesting that Rose gushed about PR, as reports indicate the entire practice might be pruned from the worldwide network.

To declare, “WPP is home to the world’s most iconic agency brands…” constitutes propagandistic puffery at its finest. Hell, many of the most iconic agency brands were erased over the years by the White holding company—before it changed to a single White operating company.

Finally, to say, “This is our integrated model in action…” is revisionist rhetoric. The awarded work was produced before Rose arrived, far preceding the Roserrection integrated model—which, incidentally, looks like a Hindenburg being built in fire-filled flight.

If Cannes presented a Lion for CEO bullshit, Rose would be a serious contender—although she’d have tough competition from all others leading holding companies.

It’s WPP top again at Cannes

By Stephen Foster

Last year WPP won Creative Company of the Year at Cannes Lions – and the organisers promptly retired the award as it seemed to reflect entries as much as anything else and, anyway, the wheels were clearly coming off WPP. It was just about CEO Mark Read’s last public appearance in the role.

It [would] have won this year too had there been such an award with Ogilvy winning network of the year with 81 Lions including three Grand Prix. Publicis’ Le Pub was agency of the year, WPP’s VML also scoring strongly while Rethink Toronto was independent agency of the year and Heineken creative brand of brand of the year.

Britain’s Mother won the Film grand Prix, still the highlight of the festival for many, for Anthropic’s Claude.

Ogilvy CCO Liz Taylor says: “We come to Cannes with one goal in mind: to proudly take the stage each night with our clients and celebrate the power of creativity in every corner of the world. To affirm their belief in ideas to solve any problem, overcome any challenge, and drive the impact they aspire to create.

“I am incredibly proud of Ogilvy’s performance this week, but more than anything, I’m proud of how we continue to show up for and with the biggest and boldest brands. To shape culture, inspire communities, reimagine entire categories, and to chart the future that we’re all, always, stepping into.”

WPP CEO Cindy Rose says: “Creativity is our superpower – it’s what builds brand differentiation and trust for our clients. WPP is home to the world’s most iconic agency brands, and this year at Cannes Lions that showed: two creative networks in the top three, the number one PR agency, the most awarded media group for a second year, and so much exceptional work that came from our creative, media, production and PR agencies working together.

Should have earned a few more years of quasi-independence for the big two creative brands anyway. VML, a mash-up of JWT, Y&R and Wunderman, has done remarkably well.

17521: Dentsu Difference Disappearing & Disappointing.

2026-06-28T00:24:37.454-05:00

MediaPost reported from Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on Dentsu Global CEO Takeshi Sano, who admitted facing the same problems as other holding companies—which he hopes to address with the same solutions including agility and adaptability, simplifying the portfolio, and client-centric focus. Oh, and he made references to AI integration too.

Things are bad in Adland when the only non-White holding company appears to be more vanilla than the White holding companies.

Dentsu Challenges: Pace Of Change, Complexity, Sameness, Says CEO Sano

By Steve McClellan

Dentsu’s Takeshi Sano notched his first major industry appearance as Global CEO on the Cannes Lions main stage Tuesday in an interview with CNBC’s Julia Boorstin.

Dentsu’s major challenges, he said, are similar to the broader industry, including the pace of change, complexity, and competitive differentiation.

Dentsu, he said, tries to remain agile in the face of constant change and has sought to simplify its business to make it more accessible to clients globally.

Client stickiness hasn’t been a problem in Japan where many clients have been doing business with the firm for more than 100 years. In part Sano attributes the firm’s ability to sustain such long-term relationships via a culture focused on “client centricity.”

Boorstin noted that such relationships aren’t common outside of Japan and wondered if one of Dentsu’s goals was generate “century clients” outside of the country. “Hopefully,” Sano responded. “If we focus on client results, we can achieve long-term relationships.”

Asked how he is thinking about AI and innovation, Sano technology expands possibilities. The challenge for companies and talent is selecting and applying the right possibilities to optimal benefit.

“AI can’t define the future, or identify issues or goals,” he said. Those areas will remain for humans to grapple with.

17520: On Registration-Only Exclusivity At Cannes.

2026-06-27T00:29:36.785-05:00

Advertising Age reported on the increased registration-only events at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which especially frustrated newer attendees denied access beyond velvet ropes.

Um, Cannes has always embraced exclusivity—marginalizing people based on status at White advertising agencies, country of origin, gender, sexual identity, race and ethnicity, etc.

Hell, even the Omnicom Inclusion Breakfast was an exclusive affair.

As for registration-only issues, don’t forget the initiatives to ban registered sex offenders.

Registration-only events make Cannes feel less democratic and overly programmed

By E.J. Schultz, Ewan Larkin, and Brian Bonilla

To thrive at Cannes this year, you needed two things: a fan and your name on countless registration lists. It was the hottest Cannes in memory and also perhaps the most exclusive one.

While the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has seen a steady rise in roped-off events, this year it seemed to reach a tipping point. The beach and harbor were again dominated by activations that required registration, including Stagwell’s Sport Beach, Amazon Port, Spotify Beach and others. This year, there was a noticeable encroachment inland, with multiple cafes overtaken by vendors and agencies, which used them to conduct invite-only programming or hold client meetings, effectively shutting them off from average festival-goers.

One big change from last year: Caffe Roma, a normally welcoming spot in the shadow of the Palais, was overtaken by Creative Artists Agency, where people guarding the entrance turned away anyone not on the list.

“People without a pay-to-play space are having to get real inventive about where to eat and meet this year, given the sprawling nature of branded spaces—they’ve exploded,” said Oliver McAteer, head of development and partner at Mischief @ No Fixed Address. “It feels like no inch of Cannes has been left untouched. Quiet restaurants you could sneak away to and take a meeting or grab a rare bite are now an AI firm you’ve never heard of. AI is likely the reason I am sunburned.”

The situation added more fire to the long-running debate over whether Cannes Lions has lost its appeal as a community gathering for creatives of all stripes, especially those without industry connections.

Take it from Fernando Machado, the chief brand officer of Chipotle, who has been coming to Cannes since he was a rising marketer at Unilever. “It was just the Palais,” he said in an interview this week, referring to the festival’s traditional home venue. “I would buy two cereal bars, two Gatorades” and “be there for the day.” He referred to this year’s festival as being filled with RSVP lists and Cannes “bouncers.”

“It makes it less democratic, right?” Machado said. “I’ve been in the industry for long now, and I know a lot of people, so I think it’s easy for me to get in.” But Fernando from 15 years ago would likely be shut out, he added.

Leeann Leahy, CEO of The Via Agency, shared a similar perspective. “It feels more like a ‘No, you can’t’ festival with all of its closed doors and over-programmed venues. And I have always loved the discovery of this festival,” Leahy said, noting that it took her “an hour to find a cafe that wasn’t taken over by some brand somewhere.”

Frances Webster, CEO of Walrus, said she had to take a breakfast meeting at the Gutter Bar, which is typically popular for late-night drinks, because so many Cannes restaurants were rented out this year.

WPP’s VML took over Beryte, a Lebanese restaurant, while tech brand InMobi took over another eatery to promote Glance, an intelligent shopping agent.

There was also some disgruntlement about the Carlton Hotel, which often serves as a watering hole for delegates beginning at night and extending into the early hours of the morning. Attendees reported being turned away by security unless they were meeting with somebody already inside, and voiced complaints about the hotel charging $100 per person to sit at a table. Tom Morrissy, chief growth officer of independent media agency Noble People, said such tactics hurt “the history and spirit of the festival.”

How the scorching heat affected Cannes

Of course, with scorching temperatures, drinking late into the night was not always the best idea. A historic heat wave gripped France for most of the week. The most common sight on the Croisette: People draped in event lanyards and wristbands holding fans. Nicola Mendelsohn, head of Meta’s global business group, summed it up quite nicely at a panel on WPP’s rooftop near the end of the week, suggesting her Oura ring “thinks I’m dead.”

The heatwave “made every indoor session a refuge and outdoor activations a genuine endurance test,” Lindsay Slaby, founder of marketing consultancy Sunday Dinner, wrote in her Cannes recap for clients. She noted that it “probably contributed to the intimacy premium: small dinners, air-conditioned villas, the sessions with 21 people at the art hotel beat everything happening at Croisette scale.”

She also observed that the “old Cannes energy was genuinely porous,” referring to past festivals of “creative directors running into clients at the Gutter Bar at 2 a.m.,” and “serendipitous collisions that turned into briefs.”

The corporate sprawl beyond the Palais is a physical manifestation of how Cannes continues to evolve into a business conference as much as it is a creativity festival. Ad tech players, who began descending on Cannes years ago, are now joined by a growing number of consultancies. Boston Consulting Group upped its Cannes presence starting about four years ago and this year ran its BCG House along the Croisette, with programming on topics such as organizational transformation and the path from CMO to CEO.

“Marketing is one of our biggest topics for us commercially,” said Jessica Apotheker, BCG’s CMO, managing director and senior partner. “It’s just a great opportunity to engage with marketing leaders. We will share some more thought leadership, connect with the right people, and also connect with the technical system.”

Cannes Lions itself is leaning into executive involvement. For the second year in a row, it hosted a Global CEO Forum. This year, the closed-door session at the Carlton ran on the festival’s opening day and was “strictly limited to 50 personally invited global CEOs,” according to its website, with McKinsey listed as a “lead insight partner.”

Still, there does appear to be a concerted effort to preserve the festival’s original creative spirit. Ciaran McCarthy, VP of brand and global advertising at Microsoft, told Ad Age on Monday that his whole team was in the South of France this week, spending lots of time walking the work and attending award shows.

“I hope others are doing the same,” McCarthy said. “It’d be a shame to come here and not.”

17519: On WPP Priorities At Cannes And Beyond.

2026-06-26T00:18:10.428-05:00

Advertising Age reported how WPP CEO Cindy Rose is spending her time at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, prioritizing huddling with clients and investors over public events.

This semi-mirrors Rose’s global agenda; that is, she’s primarily focused on clients and shareholders versus employees—a worldwide community Wikipedia currently records as 100,000 humans. Losing clients and shareholders poses a big problem. Losing employees, not so much.

Besides, the single White operating company won’t threepeat as Holding Company of the Year/Creative Company of the Year—but only because the dubious award was nixed versus WPP is now recognized as a death-spiraling flaming dumpster.

Cindy Rose prioritizes clients and investors over public events during her first Cannes as WPP CEO

By Ewan Larkin and E.J. Schultz

Few executives have walked into Cannes Lions this year with quite as much baggage as Cindy Rose. Though the WPP CEO has helped orchestrate some momentum in the new business arena in her first nine months, she still helms a company working through a major restructuring, a string of client losses and a fall to fourth-ranked agency company.

Rose made her debut at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity as WPP’s CEO without much fanfare, opting for few public speaking appearances and spending more time tucked away meeting clients and investors while explaining her turnaround plan.

Perhaps her most important meeting was with Manuel Arroyo, the Coca-Cola Co. executive VP and global chief marketing officer, who also met with Arthur Sadoun, Publicis Groupe’s chairman and CEO, during the festival, according to a person familiar with the matter.

WPP is battling Publicis for the beverage giant’s media, data and technology business in most global markets outside of the U.S. The review, which is in its early stages, marks a high-stakes moment for Rose, as Coke incumbent WPP seeks to ward off further encroachment by Publicis, which took the North America media business from WPP in early 2025.

Arroyo did not tip his hand on which agency might have the advantage.

“We have a lot of confidence today in WPP,” he said in an interview at Cannes. “We also are seeing reasons why we should have a lot of confidence in Publicis based on the work in the U.S.” He credited Rose for bringing “a lot of new and great thinking” and “an increased focus on data, technology and AI.”

Coke’s marketing priorities moving forward include more emphasis on retail media and influencer marketing, he said.

Along with putting on an investor relations event atop the Hôtel Martinez, WPP’s home base for the week, Rose also hosted more than 30 consultants and intermediaries at a private terrace gathering. And she interviewed Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström at WPP’s Stream event, Ad Age confirmed with WPP.

Her focus on clients—more than 50 of whom she met with privately—prompted her to opt out of a speech she had been scheduled to give at the Palais. Rose’s agenda also included a Thursday night client dinner.

A WPP spokesperson said Rose was not available for an interview during the festival.

On the heels of WPP announcing an agentic partnership with Amazon Web Services, Rose made a public appearance for a luncheon at Amazon Port, where she discussed a set of “trust principles” she released at the start of the festival. Asked about that timing on the panel, Rose said that “consumer trust in brands is at an all-time low, and trust in agencies isn’t much better,” so it felt like the right time to “put a stake in the ground” on how WPP operates.

One of WPP’s principles is about clients owning and controlling their data, a point Rose emphasized during her time in Cannes with AWS. “Your data and your insights as a brand is your biggest source of asymmetric competitive advantage, and I cannot, for the life of me, understand why CMOs would share that with anyone,” she said.

Rose later spoke about WPP’s marketing operating system, WPP Open, and said it is designed to give clients access to data insights and new technology without surrendering control. Her remarks come as research firms have warned that marketers risk becoming overly dependent on agency-owned AI platforms.

“It’s amazing to me how many of my CMO clients are willing to sign up to data solutions that lock them in,” Rose said. She added: “I want my clients to stay with me because we’re delivering superior growth, not because we’ve created some structural friction.”

17518: On WPP Media Global Ranking & Worldwide Tanking.

2026-06-25T00:18:48.169-05:00

Advertising Age reported WPP Media maintained its lead global ranking; however, the trade publication foresees the White media firm losing its top position as Adland continues to dramatically churn.

Ironically, WPP Media could benefit from PR, promotion, and advertising—disciplines diminished in the WPP worldwide flaming dumpster—to hype its fuzzy success, suspect capabilities, and questionable innovations.

WPP Media clings to the lead in Comvergence’s global ranking, but likely not for long

By Lindsay Rittenhouse

WPP Media maintained its position as the top agency group worldwide in global media billings last year, but it is slipping from the leaderboard, according to Comvergence’s 2025 Global Billings and Market Share Report.

The holding company led the pack with 13% market share and $63.9 billion in 2025 global media billings, but that’s down from the 14.2% share it captured in 2024. Publicis Media is not far behind, posting the highest growth rate among the holding companies, with a 12.8% rise to $62.4 billion in global billings last year, per the report.

Omnicom Media Group ranked third with $48.5 billion in global media billings last year, which represented a 5.5% increase from 2024. However, Comvergence flagged that the report did not combine the media billings of the newly merged Omnicom Media Group and Interpublic Group of Cos., as the deal closed in late November. A combined Omnicom Media Group would have had $75.6 billion in global billings, according to the report, landing it well ahead of WPP Media.

Among agency networks, Omnicom’s OMD led with $26.9 billion in total media billings, up 1.7% from 2024. WPP’s EssenceMediacom came in second place with $23.3 billion, a 3.9% decline in global billings from 2024, while its Mindshare ranked third with a decrease of 5.5% to $20.5 billion in total 2025 billings.

Publicis Media’s Zenith and Starcom rounded out the top five agency networks, per the report, posting the highest growth rates among the rivals, at 11.4% to $17.2 billion and 9.5% to $17.18 billion in total billings, respectively.

The report represents 55% of global media spend, which Comvergence estimated to be at $478 billion across 49 markets, up 4.6% from $457 billion in 2024. It also covered 107 independent media agencies, which collectively account for 12% of global market share, according to the report, representing $32 billion in total 2025 billings. Horizon Media US was the largest independent agency worldwide with $7.4 billion in 2025 billings, according to Comvergence.

17517: On The Challenges For Gaining Entry To Cannes.

2026-06-24T00:27:15.804-05:00

Advertising Age reported entries dropped over 25% for Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

There’s no data to indicate how the value of creativity has globally dropped in Adland—but the figure probably far exceeds 25%.

Of course, Ad Age’s examination doesn’t highlight the exclusivity of Cannes, whereby a limited community of privileged advertising agencies participate in a closed popularity contest.

A stricter submission process likely had 0% impact on Cannes cliquishness.

However, the revised requirements surely adversely affected the underrepresentation of non-White advertising agencies—but don’t expect Cannes to offer percentages and/or confirmation data.

Cannes Lions entries drop more than 25% as stricter rules kick in

By Tim Nudd

Award submissions to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity dropped more than 25% this year, a decrease due at least in part to the introduction of stricter eligibility and verification rules for entrants in the wake of last year’s cheating scandal.

The festival received 20,050 entries from 92 countries this year, down from 26,900 from 96 countries in 2025, organizers said Saturday. That is nearly a 25.5% drop.

In releasing the numbers, festival leaders pointed to a stricter entry process aimed at rebuilding confidence in the awards process. The festival introduced various measures this year to strengthen oversight and ensure submitted work can withstand greater scrutiny. The new rules include a new fact-checking process, stricter client sign-off and bans on agencies that submit fake or manipulated work.

The new process makes entering more challenging and time-consuming, according to agencies. The changes were instituted after the festival was rocked last year when multiple award-winning campaigns came under fire for AI-manipulated case studies, unverifiable campaign results and more.

“We have been working closely with our international community over the last year on what are considered and significant steps,” Simon Cook, CEO of Lions, said in a statement. “Together, we understand that these strengthened standards are not designed to restrict creativity, but to fortify it—ensuring breakthrough work gets the recognition it deserves, while preserving the integrity that makes the recognition meaningful and enduring.”

Other factors are likely at play in the decrease as well, such as entry fees becoming more prohibitive at agencies that are trying to contain costs and even having layoffs.

The festival released other entry data as well. Work submitted by brands accounted for 10% of entries this year, up from 8% last year. Independent agencies made up almost one-third of all entries, the festival said.

17516: On Trials & Tribulations Troubling Black Publishers.

2026-06-23T11:21:42.862-05:00

Adweek published content spotlighting Black publishers who stayed in the black when White brands pulled back performative DEIBA+ commitments.

The authors even connected matters to Juneteenth, noting “how the Black-owned media community has continued to be conditioned by a long-standing lack of support from advertisers.”

Call it being conditioned for crumbs—and systemic racism.

Black Publishers Knew the Ad Commitments Wouldn’t Hold. So What?

The ones who stopped waiting on promised ad dollars and built revenue they could control are the ones still standing

By Rhonesha Byng & DéVon Johnson

Since brands began to pull back their commitment to diversity ads in 2023, publishers throughout the BOMESI network have not been surprised. Many have rebuilt their business models with the knowledge that these ad dollars allocated post-2020 were not going to be there.

The lessons we learned over the last six years while operating BOMESI, which launched around Juneteenth in 2020, are very real.

The date commemorates when an enslaved population in Texas learned that they were free, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.

This delayed revelation indicates how the Black-owned media community has continued to be conditioned by a long-standing lack of support from advertisers.

Today, BOMESI has connected more than 300 Black-owned publishers with over 2,500 diverse-owned publishers to create a larger network of publishers reaching over 90 million households on a monthly basis. Currently, Black-owned media receives less than 2% of the total U.S. advertising spend, according to Nielsen; yet Black Americans represent approximately 15% of the population and consume more than 81 hours of media per week, 31.8% more than the general population.

Publishers made an expensive choice: trade advertising as the backbone of the business for subscriptions, events, licensing, and branded work on their own terms. Audience trust became the asset that mattered. Some turned down ad revenue outright because the strings attached would have meant covering their communities differently than they wanted to.

Here’s how two Black-owned publishers successfully adjusted, when advertisers stopped their commitments.

Black Girl Nerds expanded its product portfolio and partnerships

Black Girl Nerds sits at the intersection of geek culture and Black feminism, built for an audience that wanted both taken seriously. Broadnax didn’t wait for ad budgets to come back. Founder and CEO Jamie Broadnax built a Substack newsletter, launched a subscription book club through Bindery, and joined the Yahoo Creators program. The shift cost time, nothing more. It grew her Substack readership, brought brands back into her inbox, and gave the business steadier income through Yahoo Creators.

Snackable Media made an acquisition to better monetize its audience

Snackable Media started as a multicultural ad network, helping smaller, minority-owned publishers compete for big RFPs through bigger players’ programmatic reach. In April 2025, it acquired adtech company AdGrid, picking up its own wrapper, an SSP, rich media tools, and a new unit, Content Zebra, that helps publishers grow traffic and monetize it at once. Founder Justin Barton’s bet: brand attention has faded since 2020, so revenue now has to come from the audience itself—one he calls culturally relevant, high-spending, and worth unlocking through partnership, not a single ad deal.

The case for building audiences with brands can be tracked. According to a 2023 Pew Research Center study of 5,000 Black adults, 24% of respondents say they rely on Black-Owned media on a daily basis and 40% do so on a regular basis. Meanwhile, 63% of Black adults in this survey believe media coverage of Black people tends to be negative when compared to other minority groups. Additionally, 57% of respondents say they don’t get the full spectrum of news about Black communities.

Because brands are using the “general market” to reach their audience, they are essentially paying for something the audience has already decided is not relevant to them; therefore, brands are at a disadvantage when it comes to advertising to this group through general market channels.

The DEI retreat makes the argument all even more clear. Since 2020, equitable advertising expenditures have served as a means of expressing values through inclusion as a separate line item for brands that include or exclude depending on optics. A Government Accountability Office report revealed that over the last 10 years, federal acquisitions of advertising accounted for $14.9 billion in total spent, but just 14% of that amount (which includes all businesses owned by minorities, women, and disadvantaged individuals) actually reached those businesses that the categorization was intended to serve.

Media owned by people of color was included in the 14% total, but not at the top. Publishers who were aware of that math before it was a “talking point” are the type of businesses to work with regardless of where the DEI falls on the public policy agenda.

17515: New Standard, Old Pitch Practices—Buyer Agent Buyers Beware.

2026-06-22T01:37:16.757-05:00

MediaPost reported WPP Media is enacting IRL the theme emphasized in Publicis Groupe’s paradoxical propaganda.

That is, the White media firm unveiled a prototype for a new “buyer agents” standard for media-buying services.

The launch and ballyhoo pose questions, raise suspicions, and smell fishy—underscoring the lack of trust and transparency tainting the media field.

For starters, clients are not early adopters, typically waiting to see measurable proof of success before buying into innovations. So, it’s a safe bet WPP Media pitched with underhanded overpromising.

If WPP Media pushed outcomes-based payment schemes for the prototype, achievement in terms of revenue generation will likely integrate exaggerations and outright lies.

Finally, despite anything WPP Media might claim, utilizing a prototype means even executives at the White media firm are tinkering via trial and error, making things up while they plod ahead. As holding company wonks are wont to admit—at least internally—the plane is being built in flight.

In short, WPP Media appears to be introducing a new standard for bullshit.

WPP Media Unveils Prototype For New ‘Buyer Agent’ Standard

By Joe Mandese

An agentic bragging rights war appears to be heating up heading into the ad industry’s annual gathering in Cannes next week, with today’s news that WPP Media is developing a new industry standard for media-buying — specifically, for “buyer agents” purchasing video advertising inventory.

The first-mover announcement is consistent with big historical moves by WPP Media and its predecessor organization, GroupM, to move the industry forward by developing media research and/or technical standards for buying media — from Nielsen ratings to CTV — in order to prevent industry inertia around key media technology developments.

WPP this morning revealed it already is working with key media suppliers and industry standards bodies to “define how TV and video buyer and seller agents interact safely, transparently and at scale.”

WPP disclosed that the new agentic standards initiative includes Comcast Advertising and its FreeWheel ad tech unit, Disney Advertising, Fox, NBC Universal, Netflix and Paramount, as well as the IAB Tech Lab and Prebid.org, which are helping to “define how the WPP Buyer Agent and media owner Seller Agents communicate, validate, support approved media transaction workflows, and escalate decisions.”

“Two decades ago, the move to programmatic marked a fundamental change in how media was bought and sold. We expect agentic media to have an even bigger impact on our industry in the months and years ahead,” WPP Media CEO Brian Lesser said in a statement announcing the standards initiative, adding, “The companies that lead this next era will be the ones that combine intelligence, interoperability, and governance to define how media decisions are made. That’s what we are building with our partners: a trusted buyer-agent strategy designed to operate in our clients’ interests, maximize the value of their media investments, deepen consumer relationships, and translate intelligence into growth.”

IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur also disclosed that the initiative is benchmarking the new media buyer agent protocol on the tech lab’s AAMP (Agentic Ad Management Protocols) framework.

WPP said “initial testing” of the new media buyer agent has already begun with its supply-chain partners with a “goal of moving from alpha and beta testing to a model capable of supporting large-scale TV and video investment over the next 6–9 months” and plans to share its findings — as well as reference workflows, tech learning, and a formal proposed industry standard — in early 2027.

But the news is bound to generate even more agentic buzz at next week’s Cannes Lions festival, following a cheeky video released Tuesday by Publicis, as well as a white paper issued by influential advertising management consultant 3C Ventures late last week that cautions advertisers about using proprietary holdco agentic advertising systems.

And also this morning, Horizon Media announced a it has added its own proprietary “buying agents” to its HorizonOS Blu platform.