MultiCultClassics

17499: On AI Ignorance, Incapability, and Inaccuracy.

2026-06-06T01:16:55.836-05:00

Mediapsssst reported on a study from Stagwell’s Harris Poll and Milken Institute that featured the following:

Eighty-five percent of business leaders admit to feeling pressure to appear further with their firm’s AI implementation plans than they actually are and almost as many (80%) admitted that while they “talk a good AI game” publicly they are still trying to figure out the technology.

Advertisers should keep this in mind when White holding companies—including Stagwell—hype wondrous AI services and capabilities.

In Adland, AI stands for Actually Inept—or Advertising Incompetence.

Report: 68% Of Workers Are Navigating AI Transition ‘On Their Own’

By Richard Whitman

A new study from Stagwell’s Harris Poll and Milken Institute finds that a significant gap exists between what business leaders are saying about their companies’ AI readiness and the reality of the situation.

Sixty-one percent of employees say their leadership “barely talks about AI” internally, while 41% report they have received no meaningful AI support from their employer in the past 12 months.

And 68% of workers say they are navigating the AI transition largely on their own.

The study is the latest installment of the Harris Poll Listening Project with the Milken Institute. This year’s study included surveys of 2000 US adults 18 plus, including 1,280 workers and a separate poll of 500 business leaders at the vice-presidential level or higher at businesses generating $2 billion or more in revenue.

See the full report here.

17498: Can’t Beat The Real Exclusivity.

2026-06-05T11:48:38.345-05:00

Advertising Age reported The Coca-Cola Company is launching a global review for media, data, and technology, staging a France vs UK battle royale between Publicis Groupe and WPP.

The scenario underscores how serving global brands are closed affairs, exclusive privileges available only to a handful of White holding companies and a single White operating company.

In the US, Coca-Cola has a history of intentionally excluding Blacks from its marketing efforts.

Looks like the colorless campaign continues. Let them eat—and drink—crumbs.

Coca-Cola media, data and tech agency review pits WPP against Publicis

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

Coca-Cola Co. will conduct a global agency review for media, data and technology needs, setting up a shootout between Publicis Groupe and WPP, the beverage giant confirmed.

The rival holding companies will compete for the business in Coca-Cola’s top global markets, excluding North America, where Publicis is the incumbent, and Japan and Korea, where it works with Dentsu, Coca-Cola confirmed to Ad Age. Mediasense will handle the review, which will begin in July with a decision expected in the fall.

The review is driven by Coca-Cola’s desire to evolve “its digital-first marketing operating system for future growth. This includes a shift in mindset from traditional media planning to the emerging ways we need to reach consumers through technology, including agentic tools,” the company stated.

Coca-Cola Co. reported $5.4 billion in ad expenses in 2025, up from $5.1 billion in 2024. Coca-Cola was the 19th-largest advertiser in the world and the 27th-largest advertiser in the U.S. based on 2024 spending, according to Ad Age Datacenter.

The review comes nearly five years after Coca-Cola hired WPP for creative, media, data and marketing technology across its 200 or so brands, setting up a bespoke unit called Open X. WPP in early 2025 lost its grip on a significant chunk of that business when Coca-Cola Co. hired Publicis Groupe for its North America media account. Now Publicis has an opportunity to significantly expand its remit with Coca-Cola, potentially at WPP’s expense. Publicis finished a close second during the 2021 review, but at that time, Manolo Arroyo, Coca-Cola’s global chief marketing officer, said WPP’s global reach tipped the scales in its favor.

The new review “coincides with a contract renewal cycle following the start of our five-year partnership with WPP Open X, which has helped to modernize our marketing approach and deliver significant business value,” Coke stated, adding that “global creative and PR disciplines are not in scope of this review and will remain with WPP Open X.”

“We are proud to serve as The Coca-Cola Company’s global network partner,” WPP shared in a statement. “The upcoming five-year contract renewal process coincides with Coca-Cola’s Next Chapter initiative, and we will continue to transform our capabilities in lockstep with them. We welcome the opportunity to showcase how our integrated media, data science, and agentic technology platform and solutions will continue to drive future growth across their key global markets.”

Publicis didn’t return requests for comment.

WPP has been building some much-needed momentum in the pitch room, with WPP Media raking in $1.5 billion in new client billings during the first quarter, according to COMvergence. There is, however, a lot riding on the Coca-Cola account. Marketing consultants previously told Ad Age that any further losses or missteps with the beverage giant could signal deeper systemic issues within WPP.

It is the latest test for Cindy Rose on the eve of her first time at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity as WPP’s CEO.

Open X has seen leadership changes since losing the North America media account. When Laurent Ezekiel moved from Open X CEO to take the top post at Ogilvy in September, WPP handed the reins of the bespoke team to Floriane Tripolino, previously WPP’s client lead for Nestlé and a former Publicis executive, with Ezekiel staying on as executive sponsor.

In September, Ezekiel told Ad Age the Open X model was going “very well.” At the same time, Devika Bulchandani, WPP’s chief operating officer, made clear that WPP intended to reclaim Coca-Cola’s North America media account.

In April, Coca-Cola reported a 12% jump in first-quarter net revenue, to $12.5 billion. The company in part credited efforts to execute “locally relevant marketing at scale to drive enduring brand value,” citing programs such as an AI‑enabled campaign in China inspired by traditional Chinese paper art. WPP’s EssenceMediacom cited the effort on its website, suggesting it led to 8% year-over-year sales growth.

Coca-Cola, in recent years, has shifted much of its advertising to targeted digital channels and stepped back from big tentpole events such as the Super Bowl. However, it still spends big on the World Cup and Olympics.

17497: Different Outhouse, Same Shit—Brought To You By Adland.

2026-06-04T01:53:33.964-05:00

Adweek reported the former McCann Worldwide CCO, who left Omnicom Advertising after the acquisition of IPG, returned to Publicis Groupe, where he formerly served as Saatchi & Saatchi US and Latin America CCO, and will now serve as Leo Constellation Americas and Iberia CCO.

The winding opening sentence above underscores how White holding companies—and a single White operating company—have fueled the commoditization of Adland, whereby people, places, and practices are repetitive, redundant, and replaceable.

Why, even C-suite leaders shift from White advertising agency to White advertising agency, confirming all firms are essentially identical.

Of course, the drones must weather the storms of change, often cast away and lost in a sea of sameness.

The Adweek report closes with the most outrageous statement: “Part of his remit also includes recruiting and developing the agency’s talent pipeline.”

Recruiting and developing the agency’s talent pipeline?! Um, the newish CCO will draw from his limited pool of connections at Publicis Groupe, Omnicom Advertising, and the erased IPG to maintain the cronyism, exclusivity, and systemic racism in Adland.

Publicis Groupe Taps Javier Campopiano Following Omnicom Exit

He’ll join Leo Constellation as CCO for the Americas and Iberia

By Hannah Bowler

Two weeks after announcing his departure from Omnicom Advertising, Javier Campopiano is joining Publicis Groupe as global chief creative officer (CCO) for Leo Constellation Americas and Iberia.

The former McCann Worldgroup and McCann Worldwide CCO left Omnicom just six months after taking on his latest role following its acquisition of Interpublic Group (IPG) in December 2025.

His appointment at Publicis follows the group’s $2.2bn purchase of LiveRamp. In a statement, Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun, said Campopiano’s appointment showed the holdco’s commitment to creativity alongside such investments.

“Javier’s return is the latest demonstration of our commitment to investing in what remains a key differentiator for our clients: the very best talent, to drive creativity in all of its forms,” he said.

A return to Publicis

The move marks Campopiano’s return to Publicis Groupe where he previously served as CCO for Saatchi & Saatchi U.S. and Latin America. Campopiano initially left Publicis Group in 2022 to join Grey, also in a CCO role.

In a statement, Campopiano said his return had been on the cards for a while. “For years, Marco and I had this running joke where he would text me ‘come home’ completely out of the blue, and I would immediately reply ‘pronto.’ Well, the time has finally come,” he said.

At Leo Constellation he will report to global co-CEO’s Agathe Bousquet and Marco Venturelli. The pair said Campopiano was one of most respected creative leaders in adland. And added: “His ability to combine craft, humanity and impact makes him the perfect person to lead our creative community across the Americas and Iberia.”

Campopiano is a decorated exec having earned himself Cannes Lions, Clios, The ANDY Awards and D&AD’s.

At Leo Constellation he’ll work closely with the leadership team overseeing creative strategy and output across the group for both global and regional brands. Part of his remit also includes recruiting and developing the agency’s talent pipeline.

17496: Mo’ Media. Mo’ Money. Mo’ Problems.

2026-06-03T00:48:14.099-05:00

Advertising Age reported advertiser concern over transparency with media agencies is still bad—a decade after the ANA published a report alleging shady and unethical practices in the field.

The global issue is especially significant given holding companies—including single White operating company WPP—are transforming into media-first enterprises with an imperative on generating revenue and profits. Sorry, but desperation for dollars leads to greed, scheming, and improprieties.

Expect advertising executives to elevate their notorious ranking on the list of least-trusted professions.

Media agency concerns persist, and are more complex for advertisers, 10 years after transparency investigation

By Ewan Larkin

A decade after the Association of National Advertisers published a report prepared by investigative firm K2 alleging that media agencies were collecting undisclosed cash rebates from media deals, advertiser concerns about agency transparency have barely changed—and the problem, according to the ANA, has only grown more complex.

An ANA survey of 108 member companies released today found 43% of advertisers have concerns about the level of transparency with their media agencies, down only slightly from the 46% who said the same in 2014, two years before the K2 report was published. Among those with concerns, 49% say the situation has gotten worse over the past year, up from 42% in 2014, with principal media—where media agencies buy media and resell it to clients—cited as the primary driver.

That marginal gain came as a disappointment to Bill Duggan, group executive VP at the ANA, who told Ad Age that the nation’s largest marketing industry trade group had been “absolutely hoping for more progress.”

“The elephant in the room, has enough changed in the last 10 years? No, I don’t think so,” said Duggan.

Progress has been halted, experts said, by the rapid growth of the media channels least amenable to scrutiny. Social media, digital, retail media and walled-garden platforms have surged in the decade since the K2 report, and with them the ad tech infrastructure that makes it harder to follow where money goes.

“The media that are in ascendancy now are the ones which are inherently less transparent,” said Nick Manning, a former Ebiquity executive who worked on the 2016 K2 report. “When you get ad tech involvement, you get a loss of transparency.”

Duggan acknowledged the original K2 report didn’t pay enough attention to principal media, which has become a significant and growing source of revenue for holding companies. Court filings made public earlier this year from an ongoing legal dispute between WPP and former GroupM executive Richard Foster illustrated the scale: a report prepared by Foster in December 2024 stated WPP generated roughly $1 billion annually from rebates and principal-based media buying combined, with principal media accounting for $713 million of that figure.

Principal media has grown even as marketers remain uncertain about it. A separate ANA study published earlier this year found that 90% of marketers who used principal media weren’t sure the recommended media was in their best interest, up from 79% the prior year. Many accept the practice as a trade-off for lower fees, with little visibility into actual margins and few contractual caps—a problem compounded by procurement teams, rather than media specialists, often handling these deals.

Marketers need to reckon with how fundamentally the agency role has changed, experts said.

“It continues to surprise me how the industry tolerates things which, outside of the media buying ecosystem, would be clearly anathema,” said Richard Plansky, who led the K2 investigation and now works at Kroll, a global financial and risk advisory firm. The same practices applied to an investment advisor relationship, for example, would cause public outrage, he said.

The positives—and room for improvement

The ANA’s latest survey found that 56% of member companies had updated their media agency contracts within the past year, and 70% within the past two years, figures Duggan called encouraging. Those updates, however, have not consistently addressed the most critical issues. Only 54% of contracts specifically cover rebates, and 61% address principal media, according to the ANA’s findings.

“It’s a little disappointing to me that more marketers have not updated their contracts to address these issues,” Duggan said.

The ANA has tried to make it easy, he added. The organization’s outside counsel, Reed Smith, has published contract templates specifically designed to address both issues, with the most recent update focused on principal media.

Many marketers lack the specialized knowledge to know what their agency agreements should cover, often relying on standard supplier contracts rather than bespoke agency agreements, said Keri Bruce, partner at Reed Smith. Even where stronger contracts exist, she said, marketers frequently fail to act on them.

“You have to make sure that you’re ... operationalizing your contract,” Bruce said, pointing to audit rights as an example.

“It’s your money, Mr. Marketer, you have to manage it,” Duggan said, recommending that companies spending $50 million or more on media appoint a dedicated internal media lead. “Media is just too fragmented, complicated, changes every minute; you can’t just bundle it into another responsibility that the CMO has.”

17495: Bored By Publicis Groupe Board.

2026-06-02T00:40:45.434-05:00

Mediapsssst reported Publicis Groupe added two White people to its board, one of whom is the son of the current vice chair of the Publicis board, as well as the grandson of corporate founder Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet.

The other White holding company based in France—Havas—also features nepotism at the highest ranks.

Maybe it’s a cultural thang. C’est la vie.

Two New Members Added To Publicis Groupe Board

By Richard Whitman

At its annual meeting earlier this week Publicis Groupe shareholders voted to add two new members to the board including Microsoft Chief Scientist and Technical Fellow Jaime Teevan (as previously reported) and Benjamin Badinter.

Badinter is the son of Élisabeth Badinter (current vice chair of the Publicis board) and grandson of company founder Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet.

Badinter, 56, has spent most of his career at the holding company, which he joined in 1995.

In 2002, he was appointed head of Mediavision and Jean Mineur, an agency specializing in advertising cinema. In 2011, he was appointed Chairman Médias et Régies Europe, a Publicis specialist in outdoor, print, radio, and cinema.

In 2016 Badinter acquired the publisher of Tennis Magazine and created an agency dedicated to tennis, Tennis Team Agency. Badinter owns the publisher while Publicis owns the agency.

On the board, he will serve as a member of the strategic, environmental and social committee.

17494: Why Cannes Lions Is A Lyin’ Loser.

2026-06-01T00:27:26.847-05:00

More About Advertising reported Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity dumped the Holding Company of the Year/Creative Company of the Year trophy.

In nixing the dubious honor, Cannes Liars finally admitted it represented a scam award—a recognition exclusively reserved for White holding companies.

Plus, the Omnicom acquisition of IPG—along with WPP repositioning itself as a single White operating company—further complicated the exclusivity and scammy nature.

Given all the holding/operating companies are becoming media-first or AI-focused enterprises, it didn’t even make sense to call it the Creative Company of the Year award.

Expect Cannes to recoup any losses and maintain its outrageous profits by introducing new trophy categories.

The only true creativity with Cannes Lions involves its craftiness for maximizing and monetizing opportunities targeting an ever-award-hungry Adland.

Cannes cans Creative Company of the Year

By Stephen Foster

Cannes Lions has moved to update one of the dafter elements of its annual jamboree, “retiring” (a newly-popular word in adland as elsewhere) its Creative Company of the Year award. This simply seems to have rewarded the ad holding company that made the most shortlists — that is, had the most entries — last year going to WPP.

Which looked rather odd because just as then CEO Mark Read and the troops were celebrating this on stage it must have been evident to even the most rosé-soaked client that the wheels were coming off the British-owned holding company in all directions.

With Omnicom buying IPG the number of contenders has reduced anyway (Publicis, which ditched Cannes entries entirely one year to save a reported €50m) doesn’t seem to take the event as seriously as its US and UK rivals.

In line with this are changes to Network of the Year, presumably now a replacement for Creative Company of the Year. This too has had its issues, Omnicom’s DDB winning last year even though it had to withdraw three ads for cheating. DDB has now joined the list of retirees — folded into TBWA — suggesting the connection between supposed creative excellence and commercial performance isn’t as direct as many (including the Cannes organisers) suggest.

Cannes Lions says: “By introducing a cap on shortlist contribution, reinforcing the importance of quality over quantity through adjusted weighting, and ensuring consistent judging practices, our aim is to provide a refreshed benchmark that reflects today’s creative landscape — grounded in credibility, integrity and excellence.”

That would be nice.

17493: Staying Abreast Of Pharmaceutical Advertising.

2026-05-31T00:14:03.354-05:00

Big Pharma conference season prompts promotional pap like the animated bus stop signage depicted above.

Questionable media placement aside, AstraZeneca positioning itself as Pioneers in Breast sounds… odd.

The dubious title feels more suitable for hyping a strip club or pornography website.

Plus, the animated breast image is arguably NSFW—making OOH a controversial tactic choice.

It all underscores an Adland reality: pharmaceutical advertising sucks. Or suckles, in this case.

17492: More On Byron Allen & CBS Breakthrough Deal.

2026-05-30T01:13:29.958-05:00

Deadline reported on the deal hatched by Byron Allen and CBS, which the network views as “a new business and programming model for late night that proactively addresses a network daypart that was cost prohibitive to continue.”

In short, Allen orchestrated an unprecedented arrangement designed to profit all parties.

But don’t bet on Mickey D’s and General Motors appearing as Comics Unleashed advertisers.

CBS Defends Byron Allen Time Buy, Discloses Financials On ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’s Annual Loss & ‘Comics Unleashed’s Profit

By Nellie Andreeva

Amid continuing speculation about political motivation behind CBS’ decision to cancel The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and a soft ratings start for its successor, Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed, the network issued a statement Thursday. In it, CBS for the first time revealed the balance sheet for The Late Show, claiming that it lost about $40 million a year, a number that had been circulated but not officially confirmed until now.

The network also disclosed that Allen is paying $15 million a year as a “time buy,” meaning that he is leasing the 11:30 PM hour from CBS and selling its ad inventory himself in search of profit. That is a flat fee for the network not contingent on the show’s performance (which would impact Allen’s ad rates).

Comics Unleashed launched on May 22, the night after Colbert signed off from The Late Show. On a night that has been dark in late-night for a couple of years, Comics Unleashed averaged 878,000 total viewers over the two half-hours, according to Nielsen Live+Same Day Panel+Big Data, a fraction of the 6.74 million viewers the Colbert finale drew the night before. Comics Unleashed’s debut stacks better against The Late Show’s L+SD season average prior to the finale, 2.14 million.

“We’re proud to partner with Byron Allen on a new business and programming model for late night that proactively addresses a network daypart that was cost prohibitive to continue,” CBS said in its statement. “With this ‘time buy’ model, we have shifted an hour that was losing roughly $40 million annually to $15 million in profit — a $55 million swing.”

The Late Show was produced by CBS Studios, so the company shouldered 100% of the production cost amid an ad revenue declines across all entertainment programming on linear, with late-night’s drop among the steepest, said to be 65% over the past 6 years.

CBS and its parent Paramount Skydance have been widely criticized over the decision to cancel Colbert, who had been one of the most outspoken critics of President Donald Trump. The network’s decision to outright axe the show on the eve of Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount Global instead of looking for ways to improve its financials by cost-saving measures further fueled the backlash.

The person who launched The Late Show, Colbert’s predecessor David Letterman, has been particularly vocal on the issue.

“[Colbert] was dumped because the people selling the network to Skydance said, ‘Oh no, there’s not going to be any trouble with that guy. We’re going to take care of the show. We’re just going to throw that into the deal. When will the ink on the check dry?’ I’m just going to go on record as saying: They’re lying,” Letterman told The New York Times recently. “Let me just add one other thing. They’re lying weasels.”

17491: Former WPP CEO Mark Read Puts The Con In Conference.

2026-05-29T00:29:38.966-05:00

Mediapsssst reported former WPP CEO Mark Read is launching a London conference to connect AI startups, business and marketing leaders, and potential investors.

Um, didn’t Read technically exit WPP for failing to bring together AI startups, business and marketing leaders, and potential investors?

Former WPP CEO Read Launches AI Start-up Conference

By Richard Whitman

Former WPP CEO Mark Read is launching a new conference in London next month designed to bring AI startups, business and marketing leaders and potential investors together, according to UK reports. It’s called Prompt.

Read was quoted by online trade publication More About Advertising as saying, “I launched Prompt because I could see the opportunity to bring AI leaders together with business and marketing leaders.” In London, he added, “There’s not a venue that does that today and what I hear from CEOs and CMOs is a desire not only to embrace AI but also to know who they should be talking to.”

The inaugural conference takes place June 9 at London’s Design Museum and is timed to London Tech Week.

A decade ago, Maurice Lévy, the former Publicis CEO, co-founded a similar event in Paris called VivaTech, a conference and exposition.

That event is still going strong. This year’s event takes place at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles on June 17-20. It’s expected to draw 180,000 attendees, 14,000 startups, and numerous global tech leaders and investors.

17490: US Navy RFP WTF BS.

2026-05-28T11:03:42.393-05:00

MediaPost reported the US Navy issued an RFP, launching a mission to identify its next White advertising agency.

Given President Donald J. Trump’s administration opposes DEIBA+—and Trump declared, “We ended DEI in America!”—will non-White advertising agencies play any role in the account review?

At least non-White advertising agencies might be relieved of facing the indignities associated with Prime Redlining and crumbs.

Expect competing White advertising agencies to be MIA on DEIBA+ too.

Incumbent VML spent many years churning out performative PR, erecting heat shields, and even gaining certification for DEIBA+ political propaganda. Time to admit it was all White lies.

In this scenario, RFP stands for Racism Fortification Proposal.

Navy Issues RFP For New Ad Contract

By Steve McClellan

The US Navy has issued a request for proposal for a new advertising recruitment contract.

The initial contract period is for one year and would start in January of 2027. If all extensions are executed, the contract would expire in July of 2032, according to the RFP.

WPP’s VML is the current incumbent, having won the last contract in 2021 (when the agency was known as VMLY&R). It also won the previous contract in 2015.

The total value of the current contract is estimated at $460 million.

The remit includes creative, media, strategy, research, field marketing and more.

The Navy RFP follows word in March that the US Army is in the early stages of picking an agency for its new recruitment contract. It has issued a request for information in advance of a formal competitive bidding process that could kick off in the spring of 2027 and take effect in 2028.

The army values the current 10-year contract, won by DDB in 2018, at $4 billion. DDB was folded into TBWA as part of the reorganization related to Omnicom’s acquisition of Interpublic.

The Navy RFP was reported on earlier this week by the Ratti Report, an industry newsletter focused on new business leads.

17489: On Late Night Television And Byron Allen.

2026-05-27T00:22:32.999-05:00

NBC News revealed how Byron Allen persuaded CBS to award him the time slot formerly held by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Allen delivered a unique pitch, as detailed via the article below.

The image directly below unintentionally underscores Allen brings diversity to late night television—which will likely get the critical attention of President Donald J. Trump, who recently boasted, “We ended DEI in America!”

Byron Allen on how CBS handed him Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ time slot

The comedian-turned-media mogul spoke to NBC News this week about how “Comics Unleashed,” as well as his majority stake in Buzzfeed, will help him grow his media empire.

By Chloe Melas

As CBS sunsets “The Late Show,” media executive Byron Allen is gearing up to take over one of television’s most coveted evening time slots.

Starting Friday, Allen’s long-running syndicated comedy series, “Comics Unleashed,” will air at 11:35 p.m. ET.

Allen, who rose to fame as a stand-up comic, described the move as a “business opportunity” that he believes could help further expand his media empire. Last week, he bought a controlling stake in Buzzfeed, the digital media company co-founded by Jonah Peretti that helped define virality online.

His CBS pitch formed much earlier, however. Allen said that when news broke in July that the Paramount-owned CBS would be booting Stephen Colbert and the late-night staple off the air, he approached the network with a simple question.

“I said, ‘OK, do you like money?’” he said in an interview this week. “They said, ‘Yes!’”

Allen is friends with Colbert — the two go way back. He urged CBS to “not put on another show” if it went through with canceling the cancellation. He said he told the network, “I’ll buy the time period, and you can save over $110 million.”

Under the arrangement, Allen leases the hour and sells the advertising inventory himself. Although he wouldn’t reveal exactly how much he’s spending on the deal, he did say he’s “putting a lot of money in their cash register.”

“I am a gift from the money gods and the comedy gods,” he said.

Allen’s dream of appearing on late-night television dates back decades. When he was a child, his mother — an NBC employee who couldn’t afford childcare — took him to the lot in Burbank, California, where he got to watch late-night legend Johnny Carson in action.

“You know, my mom ended up convincing NBC to start an intern program with her, so she could work here for free,” he said. “While I was there, waiting for her to get off work, I’m watching Johnny Carson, and I’m like, wow, Johnny Carson is amazing, and he’s having the time of his life, lots of laughs, lots of fun.”

It all came full circle in 1979, when Allen got to do stand-up comedy on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”

“I was thinking to myself, in the next five minutes I’m going to change my life and my mother’s life forever, so I’m going to go out there and have a great time, and after I make these people laugh, we’re never going to worry about a bowl of cereal again,” he said.

Eventually, he jumped into the media business and founded Allen Media Group (Entertainment Studios) in 1993. He owns television channels such as Pets.TV and Cars.TV. And in 2018, Entertainment Studios bought the Weather Channel’s parent company.

He sees a bright future for Buzzfeed, a brand that he said has “a great following.”

“Everything Jonah [Peretti] has built in the last 20 years, we are not touching that,” he said. “That is the foundation we are building on that, and we’re making it additive.”

But the media company, which was among the first digital-media startups to be valued at over $1 billion, has struggled to maintain a sustainable business model, as Axios reported this week.

Allen’s plan for the site involves having user-generated content that won’t live behind a paywall and will instead be available on his ad-supported streaming platform, Local Now.

“‘Free’ is the world’s favorite word,” he said. “The two best words in media: ‘free’ and ‘streaming’ ... bring it together and, poof, you’ve got something magical.”

Allen’s ambitions stretch even further. He said he eventually wants to control the premium cable network Starz, where he is the second-largest stockholder.

“I want to own it. I plan to own it, and somehow one day I’m going to own it and control it,” Allen said. “What I’ve said to them is, what I would like for you to do is, I would like to keep it publicly traded, and I would like for you to let me put more capital in Starz and become the controlling shareholder.”

That may be difficult, however.

Allen previously explored deals that didn’t materialize, including deals with TV station operator Tegna and the NFL’s Washington Commanders. In 2024, he also tried to make a play for Paramount, CNBC reported.

Last year, Starz separated from the studio, Lionsgate, to become its own standalone public company. In March, “the Starz board unanimously voted to adopt a limited-duration shareholder protection rights agreement, also known as a ‘poison pill,’” according to Deadline, which described the move as a “defensive strategy used by companies against activist investors and hostile takeovers.”

A representative for Starz didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

That hurdle doesn’t appear to deter Allen, however. At 65, he continues to pursue his dreams, with his mother remaining one of his biggest motivations in life.

“It makes me feel great, because at the end of the day, all I want to do is make my mama proud, no matter how rich I get,” he said. “I’m just still a little scared little boy hanging on to my mother’s leg.”

17488: WPP CAIO WTF.

2026-05-26T17:40:39.938-05:00

Digiday spotlighted WPP’s Chief AI Officer, who remarked agentic AI is in the “teenage sex phase.” That is, everyone believes everyone else is doing it but upon closer inspection, no one is doing it.

For AI in Adland, the theory could be more accurately described as the “nonconsensual sex phase.” That is, White advertising agencies—as well as a certain single White operating company—are fucking clients without their approval or awareness by knowingly selling AI services via false promises and fake capabilities.

Indeed, it appears WPP’s CAIO has so little to do, he’s spending time conducting online research about teenage sex.

Why WPP’s AI boss believes agents are still in the ‘teenage sex’ stage of development

By Seb Joseph

WPP’s chief AI officer has a theory about agentic AI. It is, Dr. Daniel Hulm told attendees at the IAB U.K.’s AI growth summit in the “teenage sex phase” — everyone thinks everyone else is doing it but when they actually look, they’re not.

It’s a crude metaphor. It’s also probably accurate.

The past 12 months have produced a remarkable volume of agentic AI announcements from across the industry. Holdcos have unveiled AI operating systems, ad tech vendors have launched agentic campaign creation tools. Consultancies have published frameworks, CMOs have given keynote speeches about the autonomous future of marketing. And yet, when the people who are supposed to be deploying the tech — the agency traders, the media planners ad the campaign managers — are pressed, the honest answer is usually a version of: “we’re exploring it, we’re in pilot or we’re building the business case.”

Agentic AI is not the first technology to get caught in this particular gap, and it won’t be the last. Programmatic was going to revolutionize media buying — eventually it did, about a decade after the press releases said it would. Data clean rooms were going to helo fix third-party addressability in the open web — they’re still mostly unlocking it. CTV measurement was going to bring digital accountability to television — ask anyone trying to reconcile a cross-platform report how that’s going. Every generation of advertising technology gets its teenage sex moment, where the industry consensus outpaces the operational reality by enough to be embarrassing in hindsight.

What’s different about agentic AI is the texture of the gap. It’s not that companies are lying. It’s that almost no one is being honest about what deployment at scale actually requires.

“The reality is that companies will deploy an army of [agents] across the organization, and forgive the technical term, but it’s going to be a shit show, because most of those agents are not going to be capable of doing their job,” said Hulme. “At least 80% of the energy that you need to build agents is testing,”

The reason that’s especially important in marketing comes down to what Hulme called the second-order gap. Train an agent on historical campaign data, deploy it to make autonomous decisions and it immediately starts changing the very behavior it was built to predict. Inevitably, consumers respond differently, competitors react and media prices shift. The model, without the testing, risks becoming obsolete the moment it starts running. Marketers are not testing whether the agent does what it’s told so much as they’re testing whether what it’s told to do still makes sense after it’s been doing it for a week — against a market that has already moved.

“The problem is that buying and selling didn’t exist in the past.” said Hulme. “I’ve now changed the behavior, and marketing is the same thing. If I build a magic oracle and predict human behavior, I haven’t changed that behavior. Now I predict the models are out. You cannot predict the future based on the past.”

None of which means the tech isn’t coming. The more important part of Hulme’s argument made that all too clear. The industry, he suggested, is working with the weakest possible version of AI — think getting computers to do what humans can already do — when the genuinely disruptive version is systems that make decisions, observe outcomes and adapt. By that standard, the advertising industry is not yet doing AI in any meaningful sense. It is doing very fast, very sophisticated rule following.

“The reality is that quick wins and low hanging fruit can be solved by a third party at a fraction of the cost,” said Hulme. “You need to be focused on the problems and differentiate business.”

17487: WPP Media Leads In Wins And Losses.

2026-05-25T16:02:13.144-05:00

MediaPost reported COMvergence’s Q1 2026 Global New Business Barometer recognized WPP Media as the leader, bringing in $1.98 billion.

However, for the full-year 2025, WPP Media ranked as the loss leader with a net new business decline of $1.78 billion.

Expect WPP Media to spin the conflicting leader figures with a billion tons of bullshit.

WPP Media Led New Business In The First Quarter

By Steve McClellan

A resurgent WPP Media led the new business global rankings in the first quarter of 2026, according to COMvergence’s Global New Business Barometer.

The company’s net new business (factoring in wins, retentions and losses) for the period was $1.98 billion, with key wins including Jaguar Land Rover, Estée Lauder, and SC Johnson. By comparison, for full-year 2025 WPP Media had a net new business decline of $1.78 billion, per the research firm.

Omnicom Media Group (including the first full quarter of results including the acquired IPG agencies) was second, posting a net figure of $1.61 billion with Delta Airlines and Dyson assignments contributing. Publicis Media ranked third, followed by Havas and Dentsu, with the latter two losing a bit of ground on a net basis.

Olivier Gauthier, Founder and CEO of COMvergence noted that 25% of the $7 billion in total reviewed spend was awarded to the Big 3 holding groups, a first, which he said reflected “the growing consolidation of media business within bespoke, centralized group solutions.”

At the agency network level, WPP’s Wavemaker ranked first globally with a net gain of $382 million, driven primarily by the retentions of Huawei in China and Reckitt in India. Sibling agency EssenceMediacom ranked second, boosted by the retention of the Estée Lauder account in China. Omnicom’s Hearts & Science placed third bolstered by the retention of Cox Automotive in the US and the win of Xiaomi in China.

For the rankings, COMvergence assessed 600 media account moves and retentions across 49 countries, involving 390 advertisers. The $7 billion total was up 6% versus Q1 2025.

The U.S. accounted for 33% of total spend, followed by China at 23%. The overall retention rate was 38%, on the high side for the past few years. Publicis Media recorded the highest overall retention rate among the Big 5, followed by Omnicom Media and WPP Media.

Independent agencies — over 100 assessed in the report — captured $1.4 billion in net new business, representing 20% of the spend reviewed. Approximately one third of that business went to Horizon Media, including assignments from Discover and Weight Watchers.

17486: The New Reality In Advertising.

2026-05-24T09:32:12.105-05:00

This Milton Beer commercial by Agency 1351 in Italy is explained as follows:

Two strangers meet in a lift on the worst day of their working lives, both clutching a cardboard box. They go for a pint and, instead of feeling sorry for themselves, discover they have something in common that will take them a long way.

This commercial breaks the unwritten rules of beer advertising — no beach, no beautiful people, no sunset — and focuses entirely on the quiet resilience of ordinary men.

Entirely AI-produced.

Interestingly enough, Agency 1351 is actually a lone White male copywriter producing AI-generated content—who was likely laid off himself and/or is creating commercials that will ultimately lead to layoffs at traditional White advertising agencies, production companies, talent firms, post-production vendors, and more.

Oh, and the AI-generated commercial promoted as content that “breaks the unwritten rules of beer advertising” is breaking tenets of advertising; that is, the concept is generic, and the execution lacks distinctiveness.

A real creative director would’ve crushed the idea like an empty beer can during the brainstorm stage.

17485: Subway Offers 6” Subs, Footlongs, And Crumbs.

2026-05-23T15:58:07.985-05:00

The previous post on Subway launching a creative review to possibly find a new White advertising agency warrants another bite. Specifically, the Advertising Age report stated the following:

The chain is also prioritizing Hispanic-market expertise “not as a translation function but as a cultural capability,” alongside in-house or partner-led production capabilities for social, creator and limited-time offer content.

The statement demands interpretation.

For starters, define “prioritizing.” Which spot in the Subway food chain is designated for Hispanic consumers—that is, how important is marketing to Hispanics vs Whites?

Next, given the alleged goals of going beyond a translation function and seeking cultural capability, will Hispanic-market experts have a seat at the table—or will they be taking fast-food orders from the White advertising agency?

Finally, will Hispanic marketing restitution involve cash—or crumbs?

17484: Subway Fixing Its Brandwich…?

2026-05-22T16:22:03.121-05:00

Advertising Age reported Subway is taking its Eat Fresh tagline to different levels.

The fast feeder wants fresh thinking, which could lead to changes, including a new White advertising agency.

For starters, Subway removed its Global CMO from the menu and appointed a new US CMO.

After a review, Subway’s US media duties went from Dentsu to Omnicom.

And now, Subway is launching a US creative review.

What’s next—reintroducing Jared?

Subway shakes up its CMO roster and agencies to solve the brand’s ‘emotional resonance’ problem

By Brian Bonilla and Ewan Larkin

Subway is overhauling its U.S. marketing and agency roster, parting ways with its global chief marketing officer, appointing a new U.S. CMO, and shaking up both its media and creative accounts, Ad Age has learned.

The changes come as Subway aims to fix what an agency-focused request for information document obtained by Ad Age describes as a deeper brand problem.

“Subway falls short on emotional resonance and brand distinctiveness; the brand is more known than felt,” the brief stated.

CMO shuffle at Subway

The sandwich giant has amicably parted ways with its global CMO, Greg Lyons, just over a year after he was appointed to the role, according to two people familiar with the matter. Subway CEO Jonathan Fitzpatrick, named to the role in July 2025, eliminated the global CMO position after changing the organization’s structure to a more regional one, according to sources. Lyons could not be reached for comment. Subway did not return multiple requests for comment.

Subway hired Jeff Klein, the former marketing leader-turned-president of Popeyes, earlier this year as a senior VP of marketing. Klein will now serve as U.S. CMO. David Skena, who was appointed North America CMO eight months ago, will now serve in a chief strategy and commercialization role, according to three people close to the situation.

Before his time with Popeyes, Klein served as the CMO of Little Caesars Pizza and was a long-time PepsiCo marketing executive. He will now report to Damien Harmon, Subway’s North America president, sources said.

Subway’s ongoing agency changes

Along with the CMO shuffle, Subway has awarded Omnicom its U.S. media and CRM accounts following a review, Ad Age has learned. Dentsu’s Carat most recently held the media account.

Subway is now launching a U.S. creative review, with an RFI going out this week, according to four people familiar with the matter. The creative account, which includes creative and social duties, is said to be worth around $10 million in fees, according to a source close to the situation.

Subway brought in Publicis Groupe’s Leo New York to handle U.S. creative in April 2025, replacing Dentsu Creative. It wasn’t immediately clear if Leo is participating in the creative review, which is being conducted by SRI, according to multiple people.

Earlier this year, Leo launched a campaign showcasing a promotion for Subway’s Sub Club loyalty program in which customers can earn a free footlong sandwich after three purchases of a sandwich of the same size.

However, free sandwich promotions were removed from the program following complaints from Subway franchisees about the deal being too generous and not cost-effective.

Dentsu also most recently handled social for Subway and played a significant role in facilitating the advertising effort around Subway’s collaboration with the 2025 movie “Happy Gilmore 2.”

Dentsu referred to the client for comment. Leo declined to comment. Omnicom referred comment to Subway, and SRI wasn’t immediately available for comment.

Subway’s U.S. measured media spending declined from $242 million in 2024 to $208 million in 2025, according to MediaRadar. Subway is the 10th largest U.S. restaurant chain, according to Technomic, with 2025 sales of $8.97 billion, down 5.7%.

Subway’s brief focuses on brand reinvigoration

The company’s largest challenge appears to be rebuilding its cultural and emotional relevance, especially with younger consumers, according to the RFI document. Subway “needs to re-establish brand meaning for a new generation of QSR consumers” by creating “a clear, ownable story about why Subway specifically is the better-for-you, fair-price sandwich choice for a busy life,” according to the brief.

This includes capitalizing on its first-ever value menu, launched in late April.

Subway’s recent value offerings are positioned as evidence that the company is “finally showing up with options that deliver value and everyday access,” the brief stated. But it also notes that the company needs to convince both existing and new customers that “Subway is delicious, convenient and affordable.”

“The current advertising has been working campaign-by-campaign rather than building a long-term, ownable brand platform,” the RFI stated.

Subway sees its biggest competitive pressure not just from rival sandwich chains, but from the broader quick-service restaurant landscape, where giants like McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell and Wendy’s continue to dominate consumer traffic and volume. At the same time, emerging sandwich-focused competitors are beginning to gain momentum. The RFI identifies Jersey Mike’s as Subway’s No. 1 threat on “brand momentum and premium perception,” while Jimmy John’s was cited as a growing competitor built around “speed and convenience.”

Subway has faced declining U.S. store counts, intensifying competition and franchisee pressure during the last decade.

The company, which in 2024 completed its sale to affiliates of private equity firm Roark, has now closed U.S. locations for 10 consecutive years, shrinking from more than 27,000 domestic restaurants in 2015 to fewer than 19,000 today, according to QSR Magazine. In 2025, Subway shuttered 729 restaurants.

What Subway seeks in an agency

Subway is seeking a large-scale agency with the “bench strength to handle [its] calendar volume,” which includes “six marketing windows + test markets,” according to the RFI.

Subway also wants an agency partner with deep experience in fast-paced retail and QSR marketing, particularly around brand reinvention, social-first creative and managing large-scale integrated campaigns.

The company also signaled in the document that it wants senior-level involvement throughout the relationship, including “CCO/senior creative engagement,” that won’t just “pitch-and-disappear.”

Contributing: E.J. Schultz and Jon Springer

17483: Adweek Reruns Wren Renumeration.

2026-05-21T10:07:38.580-05:00

Adweek published “exclusive” content that was originally scooped by MediaPost in March, re-revealing Omnicom Chairman and CEO—and Pioneer of Divestiture—John Wren pocketed nearly $70 million in 2025.

Adweek compared Wren’s 2025 compensation to CEO paychecks at competitive White holding companies and a single White operating company, pointing out Wren reeled in more than double all other CEOs combined.

Salary-shaming multimillionaires actively cutting hundreds of millions from their respective corporate coffers by firing thousands will not likely get sympathy from the average Adweek reader—many of whom lost incomes because of the CEOs’ cost-cutting maneuvers.

17482: FYI WPP JLR WTF BS.

2026-05-20T12:03:25.239-05:00

MediaPost reported WPP and JLR (Jaguar Land Rover) completed negotiations initiated last December when the UK-based automaker handed its global “end-to-end” marketing communications account to the single White operating company following a review.

The scheme involves an outcomes-based payment plan and WPP-JLR relationship structure that reflect a “building-the-car-while-driving-it” approach. After all, the new partners spent nearly six months hammering out the ambiguous contractual details.

The JLR Chief Growth Officer and WPP CEO Cindy Rose delivered corporate statements that sound like breakthrough but smell like bullshit.

In short, the scenario makes less sense than the last Jaguar campaign.

WPP, JLR Finalize Global Marketing Partnership

By Steve McClellan

In December, UK-based automaker JLR (FKA Jaguar Land Rover) confirmed that it had selected WPP to handle its consolidated global “end-to-end” marketing communications account, subject to final contract negotiations.

Now, WPP has confirmed that those negotiations have been successfully completed. The remit includes media, creative, production, customer experience and marketing strategy. It covers the client's portfolio brands: Range Rover, Defender, Discovery and Jaguar.

The carmaker spent an estimated $475 million on measured media last year, according to agency research firm COMvergence.

WPP said the partnership moves beyond traditional models by forming a bespoke, integrated and co-located team from across WPP and JLR marketing talent. The business model, WPP stated, is “built on a unique outcome-based remuneration structure that aligns WPP’s success directly with JLR’s growth.”

Lennard Hoornik, chief growth officer at JLR, said, “To supercharge the growth of our modern luxury brands, we needed to think differently. Together with WPP we want to resolve the traditional contradiction between scale and intimacy. Our joint vision for a single, AI-powered modern luxury marketing organization is the solution.”

WPP’s CEO Cindy Rose, said, “This partnership is a testament to our shared ambition for the future of marketing. Our new mission at WPP is to be the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands in the era of AI. By combining the brilliance of human creativity with the transformative power of AI on WPP Open, we will help JLR create customer experiences of unparalleled intimacy and luxury, at scale, while writing a new playbook for growth.”

17481: On Honda Motor Europe Media Pileup.

2026-05-19T00:19:39.182-05:00

MediaPost reported Honda Motor Europe completed a formal review, handing its lead media duties to EssenceMediacom in the WPP Media unit. The scheme will also utilize the WPP Open platform.

WPP CEO Cindy Rose probably applauds the win as proof that Eviscerate28 is working.

Okay, except the creation of EssenceMediacom, WPP Media, and WPP Open all happened under predecessor WPP CEO Mark Read’s watch.

To compound the confusing complexity, the incumbent White media agency for Honda Motor Europe was UM, which shifted when Omnicom acquired IPG. The loss could be fallout spotlighted and foreseen in a previous post.

It’s difficult to tell who’s in the driver’s seat for this pileup—but drones across WPP and Omnicom will likely serve as crash test dummies.

WPP’s EssenceMediacom To Lead Media For Honda Motor Europe

By Steve McClellan

Honda Motor Europe has appointed WPP Media’s EssenceMediacom as its lead media agency for the region, following a formal review.

Spending in the region last year by the client is estimated at close to $90 million by agency research firm COMvergence.

The auto giant previously worked with UM in the region. It wasn’t immediately clear what other agencies participated in the review.

The new partnership, effective in August, spans Honda Motor Europe’s automobile, motorcycle, marine, power products, and corporate communications divisions across 16 European markets as well as pan-European activity.

As part of its remit, a dedicated agency team will lead Honda’s media strategy, planning, and activation across Europe. It will leverage marketing platform WPP Open, to integrate Honda’s brand-building, product communications, conversion activity, audience intelligence, channel planning, activation, and reporting into a unified system.

Honda’s decision comes as the company strives to evolve its marketing approach and strengthen alignment across brand, product and customer engagement activities, according to the company.

Consultant MediaSense was retained by the client to assist with the review.

17480: Examining WPP (Woman’s Payment Plan & Worldwide Persistent Problems).

2026-05-18T01:56:06.203-05:00

More About Advertising published a perspective examining issues associated with the WPP CEO Cindy Rose pay scheme recently approved by 75% of shareholders—despite rejection recommendations from two advisory groups.

For starters, the approval is technically not approved, as WPP is legally obligated to connect with dissenting shareholders and report collected feedback within six months.

Six months from now essentially marks Year One of the Roserrection, so her success or failure in meeting the arguably impossible incentives will be reality.

It all underscores the messiness of transitioning from a White holding company to a single White operating company—a restructuring never publicly defined with clarity or transparency.

If Eviscerate28 has been officially documented, it’s in pencil—or invisible ink—as the vote on Rose’s payment indicates even shareholders aren’t overwhelmingly convinced the flaming dumpster can be transformed.

There continues to be sloppiness as the proceedings unfold, displaying a “Ready, Fire, Aim” approach. This is unconscionable, given over 98,000 livelihoods are at risk, and leadership is readily firing aimlessly.

For drones and C-suite executives, RIFs must feel like covert military operations, devastating sneak attacks executed with minimal regard for collateral damages.

In Rose’s defense, she’s facing a basic challenge: change always changes. At the same time, to change and to change for the better are two different things.

Omar Oakes: Why one in four WPP shareholders aren’t convinced

The case for giving Cindy Rose a pay raise — rejected by a quarter of WPP shareholders — matters because of the divisions we now see within and between ad agency holding groups.

By Omar Oakes

What happened to the once mighty ad agencies of Madison Avenue and Soho, whose great creative and strategic minds used to make or break businesses?

Are agencies becoming increasingly minor characters because advertising is no longer a game of big ideas and spectacle, but a small, shabby game of following people around the internet with surveillance tactics and popups? Or do they deserve more blame for failing to make the case that the power of creativity has never been more necessary in a world of rising misinformation and automated mediocrity?

Whatever your view of agencies in 2026, there is likely a common reflex when reading stories from the past week about WPP and Publicis Groupe CEOs receiving substantial increases in their pay. My eyebrows twitched, but each to their own.

But in the case of WPP, not all shareholders did agree. In fact, one in four said no to WPP CEO Cindy Rose’s proposed pay increase, from a maximum package of £8.6m to £11.1m per year. Everything else sailed through the company’s AGM last Friday, including Rose herself being “re-elected” at 99.63%, which is a number that even Vladimir Putin might blanche at.

But seriously folks, this story matters a lot more than ‘rich company boss gets richer’. Let me explain.

WPP’s CEO pay: what’s really a fair comparison?

To understand why one in four matters, you need to know about the 80% rule. Under the UK Corporate Governance Code, if a pay resolution at a public company AGM fails to reach 80% approval, the board is legally required to engage with dissenting shareholders and report back within six months. Both WPP pay resolutions fell below that threshold (Resolution 3, the compensation committee report, at 75.84%; Resolution 4, the forward pay policy, at 74.92%).

So let’s see what WPP report back with in six months. But why go through this headache in the first place for company whose share price is so historically low that last year it fell out of the FTSE 100?

The first reason is peer comparison. In its latest annual report, WPP felt it necessary to publish the historic pay packages of its rivals to show how frugal it had been. John Wren at Omnicom earned $21.7m (£15.9m) in 2024 and Sadoun was, even before his own pay rise was revealed last week, earning a “theoretical” maximum of £10m. You don’t close the gap, the thinking goes, by having a CEO who only makes a piffling £8.6m!

The second reason is even more awkward: WPP’s boss was apparently being paid so pitifully that she was outearned by about a third of WPP’s executive committee! The traditional pyramid of pay, where the CEO is top dog and tranches below get paid progressively less, had broken down.

The third reason is perhaps the most difficult to swallow: CEOs like Cindy Rose are not just paid for past performance, their pay is intended to send a signal and an incentive for future improved performance. The ‘shareholder big bet’ was shown in its most extreme form last year by Tesla, which gave Elon Musk a near-$1tn pay package. Musk’s pay was structured entirely around milestones not yet hit, designed to keep the most important person in the building focused and retained.

The WPP board is making a smaller version of the same argument: Rose can earn £11.1m if she hits her targets, we believe she will, and here is the structure to make that happen.

You can’t imagine there being a similar rebellion over at Publicis Groupe, if it had the same shareholder voting rules. Chairman and CEO Arthur received a 20% salary increase, taking his potential package to €10.5m. But it’s a non-story because Publicis has posted 20 consecutive quarters of growth and, before Omnicom fattened itself by gobbling up IPG, had outmuscled WPP to become the world’s biggest advertising services group. In 2025, Publicis Media won more than $10bn in new business, according to Comvergence data, while WPP Media lost more than $2bn net. Yes, it has since won $1.9bn in Q1 of this year, but these are not comparable businesses at this moment in time.

In other words, Sadoun is being retained for performance already delivered, but Rose is being incentivised for performance not yet achieved.

Money is fiction. Value is reality

In recent years, Publicis built its data, technology and e-commerce capabilities over years of deliberate acquisition. Meanwhile, WPP, under Read, was painstakingly trying to simplify its hodgepodge of agencies, bespoke client teams, and integrated verticals, following years of aggressive acquisitions under Sir Martin Sorrell.

As for how WPP turns around under Rose now, last week’s profile interview by the excellent Suzanne Vranjica of the Wall Street Journal had some revealing lines. Such as:

“Rose said that once WPP returns to organic revenue growth, which she expects in 2027, it will allocate more funds to dealmaking and bolster such areas as commerce and social-influencer marketing.”

2027? Another seven months (at best!) feels like a long time to wait to start catching up. Especially since most new money in this industry is flowing directly to Meta, Google and Amazon via small and medium sized businesses who buy direct without agencies (including on verticals such as ecommerce and social media/influencer!)

As for internal “pay compression”, the timing of this argument isn’t great. WPP’s revenue fell 6.7% like-for-like in Q1. As Mark Ritson’s uncharacteristically dry, sober and unsweary Adweek article pointed out, WPP’s headline operating margin compressed 200 basis points in a single year, from 15% to 13%. And the company’s share price is down by about 30% since Rose took over in September.

While she received zero financial performance bonus (because she didn’t earn it), she did, however, receive her maximum bonus for non-financial metrics. The board gave her full marks for the softer stuff in a year the numbers went the wrong way. That is, as far as I can tell, the thing that 25% of shareholders were voting against.

The forward signal argument is the most interesting to unpick, because it isn’t wrong in principle. But a bet like this requires a credible forward path.

The risk of putting more ‘skin in the game’

If, as Rose hopes, WPP returns to organic growth next year, the market will be even more consolidated, more expensive to enter, and more densely populated by competitors who moved earlier. That makes it more likely that the board is pricing in a recovery that is, optimistically, a 2028 or 2029 story.

Will shareholders continue to have the same level of patience for that long?

There is one aspect to this supposed turnaround story that doesn’t give me confidence. For all the talk of transformation and innovation, this is still a business which, you know, needs to bring in more money than it spends. Business experts call this “profit”.

The danger is that WPP becomes so desperate to portray a winning turnaround story (to prop up the share price) that it continues to play the same, self-defeating game which has plagued all large agency groups for decades now: race-to-the bottom pricing.

Because WPP is winning accounts: the UK government media account, Reckitt, Estée Lauder, Jaguar… but if revenue keeps falling, it’s the signature of a company defending market share by cutting prices. Then every account that is won on those worse terms resets the floor for the next pitch.

This was bizarrely framed in the same WSJ interview: during a recent pitch for a healthcare company, Rose cut the agency’s fee, tying compensation to performance targets. Greg Paull of R3 (now part of MediaSense) was quoted describing this as WPP “putting skin in the game,” adding that this had not been a hallmark of the holding group. He meant it as a compliment.

Strange. Firstly, because fee-cutting to win business is not a new strategy at WPP, from everything that I’ve heard in over a decade of my covering this industry, no matter the CEO.

Secondly, the decline of fees relative to scope of work by big agencies has been a defining characteristic of this industry for decades. You can read Michael Farmer’s books and Substack to understand, with ample evidence and explanation, how the holding company model was always propped up by a cross-subsidy: undercharge on creative, recover the margin on media buying and production markup.

But now the same pressure is hitting media, as platforms commoditise buying and clients demand transparency on every pound spent. So the cross-subsidy is collapsing from both ends. Where left is there to claw the margin back from?

To quote Ritson: “The only question that matters is whether clients will pay more.”

That is the problem the WPP turnaround has to solve, and Rose’s brainchild scheme Elevate28, to make £676m in cost savings, is a margin defence operation that buys time. Meanwhile, ever weaker pricing erodes the top line.

Again, how much patience are these shareholders really expected to have?

See you in six months

If only politics were the same: a winning politician is forced to consult with the people who voted against them. Because they represent all the people, not just their supporters, right?

So it’s a very good thing that UK corporate law requires WPP to engage with dissenting shareholders when votes fall below 80% approval and report back in six months. Corporate behaviour might be even better if the actual workers were entitled to representation on boards, as they are in Germany, but that’s for a different column.

For now, this story matters because it really will signal whether there is much hope for the holding company model to survive. Is this a board that updates its view of WPP’s position in light of new meaningful evidence or another round of investor relations management that concludes with minor adjustments and a press release about constructive dialogue?

I suspect the data will answer that question before the board does.

17479: Heard The Buzz? Byron Allen Buys BuzzFeed.

2026-05-17T01:33:32.329-05:00

Adweek reported the latest buzz on Byron Allen adding BuzzFeed to his media empire.

Under Byron Allen, BuzzFeed Sets Its Sights on the Living Room

The pivot mirrors a broader shift afoot in digital media, as audiences and ad budgets gravitate toward streaming

By Mark Stenberg

When it first launched in 2006, BuzzFeed was a trailblazer, creating from scratch a playbook for sparking virality in the early days of the social internet.

Now, following its Monday acquisition by media executive Byron Allen, the brand and its sister property, HuffPost, have trained their focus on the newest battleground in the attention wars: the living room.

“As of this moment, BuzzFeed is officially chasing YouTube and the other big tech platforms,” Allen told The New York Times.

BuzzFeed is hardly alone in this pivot. Structural forces are threatening the durability of the open internet, with answer engines siphoning traffic away from websites and users increasingly gravitating toward mobile apps and walled gardens.

In response, media brands have adopted an increasingly distributed approach, cultivating audiences across channels including newsletters, podcasts, and live events. But one channel in particular appears poised for explosive growth: streaming television.

After years of deliberate expansion, streaming surpassed cable in total viewership in 2024, according to Nielsen. Its share of total television ad spend has gone from 15% in 2020 to 38% in 2025, with the crossover projected for 2027-2028, according to Adwave.

And while the streaming wars of the early pandemic centered largely on subscription-based products from the likes of Netflix, Disney, and Prime Video, the single largest player in the space for the last three years running is YouTube. The free, ad-supported platform captured 12.7% of all viewing in February—up from 7.9% in February 2023.

The platform, which has long been attractive to creators, is now increasingly drawing the attention of major media brands, as its accessibility, powerful algorithm, and simple monetization model make it nearly a video business in a box.

For a publisher like BuzzFeed, which has already built a dedicated following on the platform, doubling down on YouTube is a forward-thinking strategy. It can treat the website as the top of its content funnel, attracting viewers there before shepherding them into more direct relationships, such as through newsletters, podcasts, and commerce.

In this effort, Allen’s decades of expertise in television and the production infrastructure he has at hand could prove to be valuable tailwinds. The medium might be entirely different, but the content itself is not.

BuzzFeed is not the first media brand of its vintage to adopt this approach. Vice Media, which also encapsulated the froth of digital media in the last decade, has pivoted from a web and text-based business to a producer of video content. The upside of such a strategy might be diminished, but so too are the risks.

Of course, embracing such a streaming-centric playbook will naturally entail a substantial restructuring. Allen has already warned that layoffs are on the horizon.

And while BuzzFeed has a long history of launching popular franchises, HuffPost has a less established record on that front. News is a more saturated ecosystem than original programming, and HuffPost might struggle to compete with its blue-chip peers in the space.

For Allen, the acquisition is a relatively low-stakes gambit. The deal stipulates that he, through his holding company Allen Family Digital, only has to pay $20 million for his 52% ownership stake today. The rest of the $100 million will be paid over a five-year time horizon.

This means Allen gets the BuzzFeed, Tasty, and HuffPost brands—and, more importantly, their YouTube footprints—for about as much money as Valnet paid for Polygon or Ziff Davis paid for Dwell, Domino, Business of Home, and PopSci.

The bottom lines of these companies have sagged in recent years, but they have name-brand recognition and YouTube followings in the tens of millions. If Allen can successfully reorient these companies into video businesses, expect to see more such acquisitions in the near future.

17478: WPP Open X + Coca-Cola + Premier League = Losing Campaign.

2026-05-16T00:39:52.433-05:00

The credits for this Coca-Cola/Premier League campaign state the work was developed by WPP Open X, led by Ogilvy UK, supported by WPP Media and VML.

Gee, a lot of White advertising agencies handled a project that looks like it could’ve been executed by a junior creative duo—or AI.

WPP should be penalized for having too many players on the field.

The scenario seemingly blocks the single White operating company’s goal of simplicity.

17477: Delving Into Droga5’s Diaspora.

2026-05-15T00:16:54.120-05:00

Advertising Age published a lengthy fluff piece on “Droga5’s diaspora”—spotlighting White advertising agencies whose White principals emerged from the White ranks of the White advertising agency launched by David Droga.

Diaspora seems an odd term to use for the perceived phenomenon. Cronyism or Brotopia might be more appropriate.

The scenario underscores an Adland reality: White men leverage politics, privileges, and advantages to dominate the field.

Don’t forget Droga5 staged the Ted Royer scandal too.

Diaspora? For the legacy of this place, the best term might be Broga5.

Behind Droga5’s diaspora—and why it’s not a ‘coincidence’

By Ewan Larkin

Walking around the Ad Age A-List & Creativity Awards gala last month, everywhere David Droga turned, there were familiar faces—including those who had once sat across from him on the couch in his office. This time, however, they were collecting awards for agencies of their own. “The magnitude of it was revealed there,” the Australian expat said in an interview. “That was the first time I was like, ‘Oh wow. It really is pervasive.’”

Droga is referring to the diaspora of independent agency founders who have emerged from Droga5’s ranks over the past several years—among them the creators of Isle of Any, American Haiku, Mirimar, Alto and Mojo Supermarket. These new guard leaders learned their trade at Droga5, a creative hothouse founded in 2006 that grew from a Lafayette Street fledgling into a Wall Street heavyweight and Ad Age’s Agency of the Decade.

Not all of these founders came up exclusively at Droga5; some also hail from storied creative agencies such as BBDO and Wieden+Kennedy, but for each of them, it was the last stop before hanging their own shingle.

“I don’t think it’s coincidence at all,” said John McKelvey, chief creative officer of 6-year-old Mirimar, which now counts Poppi and Rocket Cos. as clients. “Some of the DNA from those moments is alive in our new agencies.”

Ad Age spoke with several of the founders, as well as Droga himself, to understand what it was about one agency that produced so many others—the culture that bred independence, the lessons carried forward, the relationships that endured and the occasional tension that comes with building something new in the shadow of something great.

Built to leave

It’s easy to see this situation as something of a double-edged sword for Droga. Many of the industry’s hottest shops have spawned from under his tutelage, but that also means talent keeps walking out the door.

Droga, however, said he “doesn’t begrudge anybody that goes off to do something great.” He’s also quick to make clear the departures haven’t gutted Droga5, with the Accenture Song-owned agency recently nabbing Ad Age’s Global Network of the Year following an overhaul of its leadership team.

“There’s no bittersweetness for me at all,” said Droga, who recently stepped out of the Song CEO role and became vice chair of Accenture. He said one of his greatest dilemmas during his time at the helm of Droga5, which he sold to Accenture in 2019 for about $475 million, was having more great talent than he had room for at the top.

It’s natural that, at some point, “they are going to have to go off and do their own thing,” Droga said.

Droga5 is not the only agency to have seeded a new generation of independents. Over its 43 years in existence, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, the San Francisco-based Omnicom agency, has seen its own employees go on to launch shops including nice&frank, Bandits & Friends, Optimism BH and Argonaut.

Like Droga, GS&P’s co-founders Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein understand that talent walking out the door is part of the deal, said Sarah Thompson, GS&P’s CEO and a former longtime executive at Droga5. “They’re all three very confident people,” Thompson said, and they recognize “it’s never just about one person.”

The culture inside Droga5, former employees said, encouraged independence and entrepreneurship. Droga’s stories of leaving Publicis Groupe—after turning Saatchi & Saatchi into one of the most talked-about agencies in the world—to build something from scratch was the kind of inspiration you couldn’t readily find at a holding company.

“When you have a guy standing up and saying, ‘When I quit my job and did this’ like 900 times a year, it seeps into your head,” said Mo Said, founder of Mojo Supermarket. “And then you’re like, ‘Maybe I should do that.’”

Droga deliberately avoided imposing a house style, making room for vastly different creative voices to develop alongside each other. You can see that in the alumni shops: Jonny Bauer’s business transformation consultancy Fundamentalco, for example, bears little resemblance to Mirimar, which operates at the intersection of advertising and entertainment.

Droga5 was also intensely competitive, multiple founders made clear, but driven by ambition. “I never worked as hard anywhere as I did at Droga5, and I was never surrounded by the same number of driven people,” said Thom Glover, founder and chief creative officer of American Haiku, Ad Age’s 2026 Newcomer Agency of the Year. Other former executives would go as far as to call the atmosphere cutthroat, a meritocracy where, as Said put it, “if you were really creative and really good and you delivered, you stayed; and if you didn’t, you didn’t.”

Droga has never been shy about his determination to always be the best, and that pressure isn’t for everyone, but those who thrived within the agency say it left them well-equipped to go it alone. Felix Richter spent over a decade at Droga5 before leaving in 2022, not to start his own shop, but to join independent agency Mother, where he has risen to global chief creative officer and earned Ad Age’s 2026 Chief Creative Officer of the Year honor.

Still, Richter understands why so many of his friends and former colleagues have taken the risk.

“When you’re successful at Droga, you leave with the confidence that you’re able to be successful on your own,” he said. Added Laurie Howell, co-founder of startup creative boutique and Ad Age 2026 Creative Agency of the Year Isle of Any: “Being around that, seeing what David was doing with the company, made you think that it was possible.”

“There’s an osmosis of that—you go, ‘Oh, okay, cool. I can see how this works,’” said Howell.

While most of the indie agencies that have emerged from Droga5 appear to have been founded by men, Karen Land Short, a longtime Droga5 creative leader who went on to Accenture Song, recently founded her own shop, 400 Humans. Droga5 also pointed to a number of female alumni who have gone on to senior leadership roles across the industry, including Tara Lawall, chief creative officer at Rethink New York; Susie Nam, CEO of Publicis Creative U.S.; and Lindsay Cole, president of Uncommon New York.

Lessons learned from Droga5

For some ex-employees, striking out on their own provided an opportunity to scratch a different itch. Hannes Ciatti, who opened Alto in 2019 after co-founding JohnxHannes alongside Mirimar’s McKelvey, wanted to build a shop that reflected the nature of agency-client relationships, with marketers gravitating towards project-based assignments. His time at Droga5, he said, showed him what to “protect and what to shed” at Alto; he’s betting that a small, senior team armed with the right tech and freelancers can do what once took hundreds of people.

“I’m trying to keep the ambition of a place like Droga5, but build it also for the realities of 2026,” Ciatti told Ad Age.

Droga, for his part, gets why. He noted that peak Droga5 New York was around 850 people, a scale he doesn’t think a creative agency needs to reach anymore. “Hannes is right,” he said of Ciatti’s approach.

Isle of Any founders Howell and Toby Treyer-Evans are leaning into their roots as industrial designers, blending product design and experiential work with advertising. The British-born duo is looking to move away from what they see as the “project” model most shops employ, prototyping early and iterating often. In other agencies, “there’s a process to how you make things,” Howell said. “We’re trying to collapse it all.”

Indie founders are, to some degree, going it alone, and the pressure to stay afloat presents the temptation to appease clients at the expense of the work. Droga5, though, taught employees the opposite instinct.

McKelvey described weekly Acela rides to Baltimore, and Droga’s work building creative trust with Under Armour founder Kevin Plank, as a crash course in client relationships. Droga “taught me a lot ... about how much nerve it takes to protect an idea before everyone understands it,” Ciatti said.

“There’s actually a bigger reward when you do work that might get you fired,” he added. “That was a big learning curve for me—not being afraid to be brave, sometimes needing to say no to lawyers or people that wanted to stop you.”

These founders cited Droga’s hands-on approach to the work and willingness to back his teams in client meetings, among other things. Many said he was involved as they prepared to strike out on their own, offering advice on everything from finances to landing first clients. As McKelvey prepared to leave, Droga told him the door would always be open if things didn’t pan out.

“Think about the confidence of someone telling you if this thing fails, the worst thing that’s going to happen is you’ll get a great job,” McKelvey said.

Bits of camaraderie, bits of tension

Some of these agencies, like Isle of Any, are now working with former Droga5 clients. The shop has drawn early raves for campaigns with Coinbase, OpenAI and The New York Times—a client they’d worked with for over six years back at Droga5. Treyer-Evans, however, said Isle of Any is careful to keep a clean break from their former shop, never poaching clients or staff.

Droga said he has no issue with the client overlap, noting that he introduced Isle of Any’s founders to Coinbase, the same client Accenture Song worked with on the 2022 Super Bowl QR code spot. “As long as great work is coming out of it, and it moves our industry forward, I’m not that insecure about it, to be honest,” he said.

American Haiku has staffed up with several Droga5 alumni, including Jessica Kingsbery, formerly managing director of Droga5 New York, who was named CEO. The agency’s heavy Droga5 representation wasn’t “by design,” Glover said, though it did result in an “awkward conversation” with Droga himself. “Those people all have a way of working and communicating with each other that makes it easy when you’re small and you want to get a lot done,” he explained.

Droga understands this part of the business well; he spent years bringing trusted people with him across stints in Singapore, London and beyond. Still, the AAF Hall of Famer is competitive and doesn’t want to see Droga5 hurt.

“You can’t come to me for advice one day but then also go around my back and take people the next day,” said Droga.

Said, who also hired Droga5 employees heavily early on, eventually came to see it the same way, that the “etiquette of having a mentor and stealing from a mentor” didn’t sit right.

As for the founders’ relationships with each other, not everyone talks all the time, but there is a general sense that the line is always open. Many of the former employees said they have a low-fi get-together at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, a slice of camaraderie that serves as a reprieve from the competition. “We’re on pitch lists together, we’re going after the same candidates,” said Glover. “But it’s all generally friendly.”

Across Ad Age’s conversations with Droga5 alumni, it’s evident that some are keen to avoid being pigeonholed as just another shop that came out of the agency. Said found himself feeling the same way in the first few years out of the gate, but time has a way of softening that instinct, especially when people start leaving Mojo Supermarket to start agencies of their own.

After Mojo Supermarket won Ad Age’s Small Agency of the Year in 2022, Said wanted to send the award straight to Droga. “I was just like, I’m so happy to be the ‘Better Call Saul’ to your ‘Breaking Bad,’” he recalled.

“We will never be that good of a show. But there are so many spinoffs that are bad, for one to be kind of good is the greatest compliment to you,” he added.

17476: Dentsu Deploys Duplicative Dumbness.

2026-05-14T00:21:11.925-05:00

MediaPost reported Dentsu flattened its EMEA org chart, which squashed the EMEA CEO, a 20-year veteran now being squeezed out of the holding company.

Gee, that move looks familiar.

Dentsu Global CEO Takeshi Sano declared, “Since stepping into the Global CEO role, my focus has been on building a simpler, more agile and an even more client-centric dentsu. Our evolved cluster model in EMEA reflects that commitment. It reduces complexity, brings leadership closer to clients, and improves our ability to collaborate, deploying talent and capabilities with speed.”

Gee, that scheme sounds familiar. Oh, right—it’s what every CEO from a holding company or single White operating company is saying.

Dentsu Flattens EMEA Org Chart, Regional Heads To Report To Sano

By Steve McClellan

Dentsu today announced what it called a “simplified model” in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) that will have Dentsu executives Annette Male, Sawomir Stepniewski, and Mariano Di Benedetto managing broader sections of the region and reporting directly to recently appointed global CEO Takeshi Sano.

With the new reorganization, the position of EMEA CEO is eliminated and long-time company veteran and EMEA CEO André Andrade will leave Dentsu after more than 20 years with the firm. Giulio Malegori, executive senior advisor, Dentsu & chairman, Dentsu EMEA, will continue in his post.

Sano stated in a release announcing the move that “Since stepping into the Global CEO role, my focus has been on building a simpler, more agile and an even more client-centric dentsu. Our evolved cluster model in EMEA reflects that commitment. It reduces complexity, brings leadership closer to clients, and improves our ability to collaborate, deploying talent and capabilities with speed.”

Under the new setup, Stepniewski will manage the “core cluster” of Central Europe. Male will lead the Northern Europe cluster, expanding her remit beyond the UK and Ireland to include Nordics, Benelux and the Baltics.

Di Benedetto will lead the Western & Southern Europe and MEA cluster, expanding his remit to take on Spain, Portugal, France and Sub-Saharan Africa, in addition to his current remit of Italy, Greece, Israel, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Qatar and Türkiye.

The changes are effective in July.

The EMEA management reorganization is not a template for other regions, a company rep stressed. “Each regional approach is specific to client needs and local market dynamics,” he said, noting the recent promotion of Beth Ann Kaminkow to CEO, Americas and chief global client officer. She was previously North America CEO.

17475: The WPP Strategy—How To Grow A Flaming Dumpster.

2026-05-13T01:01:00.004-05:00

MediaPost reported WPP elevated two White men to global presidents of client growth.

It must be a confusing time for WPP drones and leaders, as the single White operating company reels via restructuring, redundancies, and RIFs while simultaneously readying for revitalization, reinvention, and growth.

Both White men are credited for achieving success with media and advertising pitches at earlier versions of WPP.

Seems they’ll now face the challenge of first defining what they’re pitching.

Wise people have said it is only through adversity that we experience growth.

At least the newly appointed global presidents of client growth have plenty of adversity to leverage.

WPP Elevates Jenner, Heimann To Top Growth Roles

By Steve McClellan

WPP agency veterans Toby Jenner and Philip Heimann have been promoted to global presidents of client growth. The roles are new and designed to drive the company’s “single unified growth strategy” spelled out by CEO Cindy Rose earlier this year.

They both report to WPP chief operating officer Devika Bulchandani.

Jenner, a 20-year company veteran, was previously global chief business officer at WPP Media and before that CEO of company media agency Wavemaker. Most recently he’s credited with shaping WPP Media’s unified go-to-market strategy and leading successful pitches for adidas, PlayStation, Reckitt, Amazon and more. He will continue to oversee WPP Media growth as part of his broader holding company remit.

Heimann was previously global chief growth & marketing officer at Ogilvy. He’s credited with boosting the agency’s pitch win rate over six years from 22% to 60% leading the team that won assignments from companies such as Verizon, Audi, Kimberly-Clark and more.

With the promotions, both executives join WPP’s executive committee. Jenner will also serve on the WPP media global leadership team and Heimann will serve on the WPP creative leadership team.