MultiCultClassics

17465: Help Wanted At WPP…?

2026-05-07T09:29:00.008-05:00

Here’s more evidence WPP restructuring lacks strategic and intentional execution—rather, it’s a flaming dumpster.

For starters, the single White operating company recently launched WPP Commerce, stating the integrated unit was designed to collaborate across WPP’s four main parts: WPP Media, WPP Creative, WPP Enterprise Solutions, and WPP Production.

Okay, except VML—which was recently folded under the WPP Creative banner—still offers commerce capabilities. In fact, the White advertising agency just posted the job listing depicted above for a Creative Director (Commerce).

WPP CEO Cindy Rose claims the company is embracing simplicity—with ambitions of being a trusted growth partner for clients in the era of AI.

Somebody should explain to Rose that trust comes from consistency, integrity, empathetic caring, and transparency. Internally and externally.

It’s that simple.

17464: The Real WPP Story—From An Unreal Perspective.

2026-05-07T00:20:00.002-05:00

Adweek published a perspective from its resident marketing professor-fractional consultant-uninformed analyst—who, incidentally, seems open to selling his columns to any trade journal or business publication seeking pseudo thought leader content—speculating on the WPP never-ending story.

There’s even a disclosure-disclaimer indicating his wannabe MasterClass services are available—probably at subscription rates—to White advertising agencies.

The author declares the real WPP story is not about revenue decline; rather, it’s margin.

In recent months, WPP presumably won and retained business via low-balling tactics, but will clients eventually cough up mo’ money and pay standard costs?

Surely Eviscerate28 does not intend to position WPP as the bargain basement brand among competitive holding companies.

Yet the author—having zero real-life experience in Adland—appears to miss the true plot.

It’s not whether clients will pay more—indeed, it’s will clients pay at all?

As previously mentioned, WPP has led the commoditization of Adland.

Now, the single White operating company has nothing unique to provide—at any price tag.

The only people profiting from WPP are Monday morning marketing quarterbacks. And the most annoying are those who’ve never played in the ad game.

The Real WPP Story Is in the Margin, Not the Revenue

Despite promising around $675 million in savings, the only question that matters is whether clients will pay more

By Mark Ritson

Disclosure: Mark Ritson’s MiniMBA course has been offered to Omnicom Oceania staff. Omnicom is a competitor to WPP.

When WPP posted its first-quarter numbers last week, one line did all the talking. Net revenue down 6.7% like-for-like. Its key unit WPP Media is down 8.5%.

The company described this performance, with commendable composure, “ahead of expectations.” Which tells you everything about the expectations now governing the big end of advertising.

The more instructive story isn’t the revenue decline. It’s margin.

WPP’s full-year 2025 headline operating margin came in at 13%, down from 15% in 2024.

Two hundred basis points in 12 months—the kind of compression you associate with recessions or category collapse, not with a company that has a turnaround strategy in-market.

The Elevate28 strategy, unveiled in February, promises around $675 million in gross annual savings by 2028 at a cash cost of around $540 million to deliver. CFO Joanne Wilson told analysts that staff bonuses suppressed in 2025 will need to be rebuilt through 2026. That cuts both ways: employees get paid properly again, but the lever WPP used to protect margin last year is now spent.

On the Q1 call, Adrien de Saint Hilaire of Bank of America asked the question every CMO should be asking. Revenue with WPP’s top 25 clients was down low single digits even excluding losses.

What drove the decline? Reduced scope of work, fee pressure, or outright budget cuts?

The answer determines whether WPP has a cyclical problem or a structural one

Scope reductions are cyclical: clients buying less of the same thing. Budget cuts are cyclical: economies contract, marketing contracts with them.

Fee pressure is structural: clients paying less for the same thing. That is a different animal entirely. It doesn’t respond to patience or strategy decks.

The answer, given on the Q4 2025 call, from Cindy Rose herself, confirmed it was all three—and that WPP anticipates “some downward pricing pressure from AI productivity,” which it plans to offset through cross-selling and capturing more of clients’ addressable spend. Translation: fees are falling, and the plan is to win volume elsewhere in the client’s wallet to compensate.

The numbers make the case plainly. On a like-for-like basis, gross revenue declined 4.0%, while net revenue declined 6.7%.

Pass-through costs—the media and production money flowing through WPP’s books to third parties—are holding up better than the agency-fee line. Clients are still spending. WPP is just earning less per dollar of that spend.

WPP is winning business too: the U.K. government media account, Reckitt, Estee Lauder, Jaguar. Revenue is still falling. Winning accounts while revenue drops is the diagnostic signature of a business defending share by cutting price. Every account won on tighter terms resets the floor for the next pitch.

Volume losses are real. Wilson flagged a 500 to 600 basis-point drag from gross client losses in 2026, up from 300 to 400 last year. Major U.S. and U.K. accounts walked. CPG and telecom, media, and entertainment spend is genuinely weaker.

Fee pressure and volume loss are not separate stories

They are the same story told twice. Clients negotiate harder on price, and walk when WPP won’t move, for the same reason: the holding company proposition has lost its differentiation.

Accenture Song owns the top of the funnel with strategy and tech. In-housing has gutted the middle, capturing retainer budgets clients once handed over without a second thought. Meta will take the rest. AI is eating production and media planning from below. WPP, like every big agency peer, faces a decade of simultaneous price and volume compression because it is no longer the default answer to a question only it can answer.

Elevate28’s $675 million in savings is a margin-defense operation—buying time while structural pricing erodes the top line. It can absorb a year or two of compression. It cannot solve what is causing it.

The harder task, the one WPP’s leadership avoided for a decade, is rebuilding a reason for clients to pay full price. WPP Open and the Adobe partnership are moves in that direction. Whether they produce a defensible category-of-one position, or simply make the cost reduction on commodity work cheaper to execute, is the question the market is now asking every holding company. Quarter by quarter. Pitch by pitch. Margin point by margin point.

17463: Coke Adds Life—But Not For WPP.

2026-05-06T00:12:00.001-05:00

More About Advertising reported WPP received an early lump of coal in its Christmas stocking.

Studio.One—launched by the former founder of AKQA and longtime WPP executive via acquisition—snagged the Coca-Cola 2026 Christmas campaign assignment from the single White operating company.

In mid-2025, WPP Open X—the bespoke Coca-Cola unit—saw its CEO bail out for Publicis Groupe, the White holding company that earlier had yanked Coke’s media business from WPP.

WPP executives probably feel driven to drink.

Ajaz Ahmed’s Studio.One snatches Coca-Cola Christmas from WPP

By Stephen Foster

Revenge is sweet they say, some add that it’s best eaten cold. Ajaz Ahmed’s new outfit Studio.One has reportedly pipped WPP’s Open X to Coca-Cola’s prized 2026 Christmas campaign despite Open X supposedly enjoying possession of the entire Coke business (except media, of which more later.)

Ahmed (above) was the founder of AKQA, the digital agency that more or less rewrote the rule book for highly creative digital and which enjoyed a long and profitable relationship with WPP in the Sir Martin Sorrell era after he bought it for £300m. Things didn’t go so well when Mark Read took over, reaching crisis point when he merged AKQA with Grey, a truly bizarre shotgun marriage amid a series of them. Ahmed left among with a number of key executives although AKQA continues.

Bespoke agencies with supposedly exclusive relationships with big clients are catnip for some holding companies but tend not to last. WPP has had a succession of them over the years. Coke, to be charitable, seems to have deliberately built some elasticity into Open X but when you then award North American media to Publicis (as it has) and the Christmas campaign to what is in effect a breakaway then the elastic is being stretched a pretty long way. Just last week WPP’s Ogilvy announced that it had won Diet Coke in a pitch against Uncommon and Mother. No mean feat but should you need to jump through these hoops in such a client/agency relationship?

As for Ahmed and Studio.One one of the marketing world’s most successful and truly creative entrepreneurs is off and running.

17462: On Cinco De Mayo In Adland.

2026-05-05T16:17:00.000-05:00

Many White advertising agencies likely celebrated Cinco de Mayo in stereotypical fashion, with employees donning sombreros, dancing to mariachi music, and drinking margaritas.

Indeed, more time, intent, and resources were probably allocated for partying versus participating in multicultural marketing—or pursuing DEIBA+ initiatives and/or inclusive hiring practices.

Expect the systemic racism to formally resume on May 6.

17461: OmnicoMusical Chairs.

2026-05-05T01:38:00.003-05:00

MediaPost reported on more musical chairs at Omnicom, with a CEO departure activating a dominoes effect of succession for White executives.

So, now Omnicom is reeling with restructuring, redundancies, RIFs, resignations, and reassignments—creating an R-rated experience for worker drones.

Rising Omnicom Star Painter Out: Gambino, McCord Succeed Omni, Commerce Respectively

By Joe Mandese

Omnicom this morning announced long-time Flywheel Digital executive Christine Gambino has been named CEO of its homegrown artificial intelligence (AI) platform Omni, succeeding Duncan Painter, who is leaving Omnicom.

In a related move, Omnicom said long-time Flywheel CEO Alex McCord will now lead Omnicom Commerce, a unit that previously reported to Painter.

Gambino, who joined Omnicom when it acquired Flywheel from Ascential PLC for $825 million in January 2024, has been serving as COO of Omni since October 2025.

McCord had been with Flywheel since 2016, when he joined from related company Compass Marketing Inc.

Painter, who had been a rising star inside Omnicom since he joined after serving as CEO of Ascential and negotiating the sale of Flywheel to Omnicom, has focused on integrating Omnicom’s commerce, retail media, and proprietary data companies -- including Flywheel and more recently, Acxiom (acquired as part of Omnicom’s purchase of Interpublic) had been seen by some as being a potential successor to Omnicom CEO John Wren.

In recent months, Omnicom executives have touted the company’s proprietary data companies as contributing to Omni’s competitive advantage vs. competing holding companies.

“I’m proud of how swiftly we launched the next generation of Omni following the Interpublic acquisition, establishing it as a unified asset for the combined group,” Painter said in a statement adding, that he has “complete confidence” in Gambino and McCord “as I move into my next chapter in the U.K., where I’ll be closer to my family.”

Omni and Flywheel will continue to operate as a core part of Omnicom’s Integrated Media capabilities.

17460: Introducing New & Improvised WPP Commerce.

2026-05-04T01:52:00.007-05:00

Adweek spotlighted the launch of WPP Commerce, an integrated team that will collaborate across the single White operating company’s four outhouses: WPP Media, WPP Creative, WPP Enterprise Solutions, and WPP Production.

The trade journal reported, “The creation of WPP Commerce is the first step in the holding company’s two-year turnaround plan”—aka Eviscerate28. Adweek apparently forgot the news it recently published stating WPP is no longer a holding company.

Whatever. It means drones handling commerce-related duties (e.g., shopper marketing and display design) won’t find themselves pruned like PR practitioners or others that don’t fit in the publicly undisclosed WPP strategic vision—pending identifying redundancies and restructuring RIFs.

WPP Commerce will be led by a White man who formerly ran a forgettable White retail marketing agency in the WPP network.

This poses the £14.2 million question for WPP CEO Cindy Rose: Does WPP Commerce—along with WPP Media, WPP Creative, WPP Enterprise Solutions, and WPP Production—offer distinct and better services versus competitive holding companies?

Sorry, but WPP Commerce is just another generic choice on a cluttered corporate commerce shelf.

17459: WPP = Worldwide Problems Proliferating.

2026-05-03T13:17:00.005-05:00

Financial Times reported WPP CEO Cindy Rose might not earn up to £14.2 million (roughly $19.1 million USD) as previously reported by The Times, pending an investors vote scheduled to happen this week. Financial Times, incidentally, indicated the potential payout could reach £11 million versus The Times’ £14.2 million figure.

Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis—two prominent shareholder proxy advisory groups—recommended that investors vote against the proposed pay deal.

The ISS rejection recommendation stated the payment scheme “is considered out of proportion to the company’s market positioning and its financial performance,” and there is “no sufficient justification to set her total pay package at a premium to her predecessor.”

While former WPP CEO Mark Read’s 2024 salary was capped at £8.6 million, former WPP Overlord Sir Martin Sorrell once pocketed almost £30 million—so it’s tough to dispute or agree with the ISS position.

Glass Lewis stated investors should oppose pay proposals given “the significant salary on appointment for the CEO, the discrepancy between financial and non-financial metric outcomes under the annual bonus, and the lack of disclosure surrounding the decision to grant [long-term investment plan] awards at maximum level despite a significant fall in share price.”

Regarding the Rose pay package, WPP claimed it had “undertaken extensive consultation with our shareholders on the proposed changes to our remuneration policy, with strong support indicated from the vast majority.” Plus, the single White operating company stated the changes were “essential to align us with global peers, restore growth, and position WPP as a company fit for the future and built to win.”

The entire mess underscores three key points:

1. Rose should attend all earning calls, seizing such opportunities to justify her salary—whatever the actual amount might be.

2. Given the fuzzy pay figures, confusion surrounding organizational restructuring, and overall lack of transparency, WPP should consider keeping Burson, as there is great need for professional PR to hype the company’s progress.

3. WPP is a flaming dumpster.

17458: On Brand Investment, Interest, And Indifference For Black Consumers.

2026-05-02T02:51:00.009-05:00

MediaPost published an almost stereotypical perspective on connecting with Black consumers.

From emphasizing Blacks shape culture to insisting Black audiences are swayed by authentic and accurate representation in advertising, the op-ed offers nothing new. The exposition mimics pitch decks of every past and present Black advertising agency.

The author delivers the standard declaration: “Brands that invest in authentic cultural representation have a larger, more responsive audience ready to engage and convert.”

Okay, except history has shown brand investment rarely exceeds crumbs—and brand interest is even crumbier. Indeed, the current anti-DEIBA+ vibe in Adland fuels brand indifference.

Cultural Trust As Currency: Why Black Consumers Shift Spending Due To Brand Values

By Charlene Polite Corley

Black consumers continue to shape culture that captures attention, but tokenism alone is not enough to earn loyalty. Increasingly, Black consumers are making intentional decisions about where they spend their money, and those decisions are directly tied to whether a brand demonstrates real cultural understanding and alignment. In times of economic uncertainty, that bar is only getting higher.

The data makes the stakes even clearer. According to Nielsen’s 2025 Attitudes on Representation Study, over half of Black consumers say a brand’s stance on social issues is a major factor in their purchasing decisions, and 70% say they will stop buying from brands perceived as devaluing their community, up from 66% in 2023. That upward trend signals that Black consumer expectations are growing, and brands that are not keeping up the pace are actively losing ground.

What drives this shift is visibility and relevance in practice. Black audiences are more than twice as likely to rank authentic and accurate representation of their race or ethnicity as the strongest motivation to engage with new content compared to respondents overall. Additionally, 67% of Black consumers say they pay more attention to brands that reflect their culture, compared to 46% overall.

For marketers, this gap represents both a risk and a clear opportunity. Brands that invest in authentic cultural representation have a larger, more responsive audience ready to engage and convert.

Where and how brands show up matters significantly. Fifty-six percent of Black consumers prefer to buy based on ads that appear in culturally relevant content, compared to 35% overall. This is not a preference to ignore. It means that media placement is a value signal, not solely a targeting decision. Showing up in the right cultural contexts communicates that a brand understands and respects the audience it is trying to reach.

Earning attention from Black consumers requires cultural fluency built over time, through community partnerships, creator collaborations and storytelling that reflects the full range of Black experiences. For example, Black suburban consumers are among the most likely to agree that a brand’s stance on social issues influences their purchasing decisions, at 59%, compared to 51% of the suburban total, according to Nielsen’s 2025 Advanced Audience Attitudes Study. Strategies that treat Black audiences as monolithic will miss this nuance entirely.

Ultimately, brands that earn lasting loyalty are the ones that approach cultural understanding as an ongoing commitment—and a competitive advantage. Black consumers watch to see how brands show up consistently, how they listen and how they invest the time to understand the communities they are trying to reach. When consumers feel genuinely seen, they respond with loyalty and advocacy. When they feel like an afterthought, they spend elsewhere.

In today’s marketplace, cultural trust is a business metric, and it is one that Black consumers are actively scoring every day.

17457: On The Fabrication Of Lola USA.

2026-05-01T12:21:00.005-05:00

MediaPost reported Omnicom executed another erasure-mashup involving two White advertising agencies—180 US and adam&eveDDB NY—to launch Lola USA.

The Lola agency brand was already established globally, with Lola Madrid and Lola\TBWA in Brazil.

The Lola name derived from combining the Lo from Frank Lowe of Lowe & Partners and the La in Latino. Lowe & Partners was a White advertising agency that IPG merged with Mullen Advertising in 2015 to create MullenLowe—which was ultimately erased and absorbed by TBWA after Omnicom acquired IPG last year. Oh, and IPG is gone too.

Pity the drones who shuffle through constant merging, erasing, restructuring, redundancies, and RIFs—including endless revisions to org charts, business cards, email footers, and LinkedIn profiles.

An executive at the new Lola USA declared, “We’re unashamedly ambitious. From top to bottom, there’s something beautifully irrational about how driven this team is to solve hard problems for our clients. We’re hungry. We’re obsessed. And we won’t rest until our friends jealously text us about what we’ve created.”

But first, the team must figure out who, what, when, where, why, and how they are.

Lola USA Debuts, Combines 180 US And Adam&EveDDB New York

By Fern Siegel

Lola USA has debuted, combining 180 US and adam&eveDDB New York into a micro-network within Omnicom. Lola Madrid and Lola\TBWA in Brazil are also part of the company.

The new agency is led by CEO Agathe Guerrier and CCO JD Jurentkuff. Lola USA reports 50% of the agency is dedicated to creative roles.

“Many marketers are feeling the squeeze, with shrinking ambition driven by tighter budgets and uncertainty,” said Guerrier, the former 180 US CEO. “We’re here to position a new type of agency. One that combines the artisanal culture of an independent, with the depth of technology and connected capabilities only Omnicom can provide. An agency reimagined for the future, with consultative acumen and cultural edge.”

Clients include Porsche, adidas, Molson Coors, JetBlue and Disney. First work is expected in the coming months.

The agency specializes in brand and marketing strategy, creative campaigns, brand design, and social and editorial storytelling, supported by Omnicom’s AI capabilities.

“We’re unashamedly ambitious,” added Jurentkuff, a former 180 US TBWA\Worldwide and Apple agency executive. “From top to bottom, there’s something beautifully irrational about how driven this team is to solve hard problems for our clients. We’re hungry. We’re obsessed. And we won’t rest until our friends jealously text us about what we’ve created.”

Additional staff includes Kimmy Harvey as head of creative operations, with Mike Bokman and Jason Ashlock as ECDs. Mitch Horton leads as head of design. On the business side, Elliott Bastien is head of strategy, Laura Cona is Chief Growth Officer, Devon Hay is managing director, Caroline Jackson is Chief Client Officer and Margaret Coleman is head of account management.

17456: WPP Win Doesn’t Wash Away Losses.

2026-04-30T13:16:00.004-05:00

MediaPost reported Henkel Consumer Brands completed a worldwide shootout that started over a year ago, awarding its global creative and production business to WPP.

The move follows Henkel consolidating its European media business with WPP Media last year.

According to MediaPost, WPP CEO Cindy Rose gushed the latest win presented more evidence that the turnaround plan for the single White operating company—Eviscerate28—was working.

Thousands of former WPP drones, however, are not working—with additional RIFs to come.

Given the Q1 earnings report detailed declines across all WPP divisions, it appears Rose is mimicking her predecessors and other holding company leaders.

That is, Rose is peddling Pollyannaish bullshit.

WPP Wins Expanded Remit From Henkel Consumer Brands

By Steve McClellan

WPP has been awarded the consolidated global creative and production business for Henkel Consumer Brands, including brands such as Persil, Schwarzkopf, and Syoss.

The additional remit follows Henkel’s decision last year to consolidate its estimated $825 million consolidated media business in Europe with the holding company.

The win follows a competitive global pitch that began more than a year ago. WPP Open, the company’s agentic marketing platform, will serve as the “strategic backbone” for the new assignment.

Cindy Rose, CEO of WPP, said the win was further evidence that the company’s turnaround plan, unveiled earlier in the year, was working.

17455: FYI WPP Q1 WTF (Cont’d).

2026-04-29T00:21:00.002-05:00

MediaPost spotlighted additional details on WPP Q1 earnings, revealing WPP Media delivered the worst decline for the single White operating company.

This is extra bad news given pseudo thought leaders and analysts speculate WPP CEO Cindy Rose is restructuring the flaming dumpster to become a media-first enterprise.

Based on the earnings report, WPP is now a media-worst enterprise.

WPP Media Delivers Worst Q1 Decline, ‘Enterprise Solutions’ Seen Most Promising

By Joe Mandese

Media was the biggest drag on revenue during WPP’s first quarter, the “unholding” company disclosed in its earnings release this morning.

WPP Media, which accounts for the greatest share of company revenue (41%, see chart below), saw its revenue decline 8.5% in the first quarter -- nearly two points greater than WPP’s overall decline and markedly greater than its other reported divisions, including creative services, public relations and specialist agencies.

While WPP did not disclose the explicit performance of a newer category of services – “enterprise solutions,” which now accounts for 13% of total revenue -- it was cited as a potential area of higher revenue growth.

The earnings report called out a recent enterprise solutions deal with Adobe as an example, but did not explicitly disclose the nature of the services or the revenue model.

17454: FYI WPP Q1 WTF.

2026-04-28T16:36:00.004-05:00

MediaPost spotlighted the WPP Q1 earnings call, where the White holding company—er, single White operating company—reported revenue declines in line with expectations.

Clearly, expectations are low—albeit probably realistic.

WPP CEO Cindy Rose dodged the call, contrasting the attendance practice established by predecessors Mark Read and Sir Martin Sorrell.

MediaPost stated, “Rose will participate in the mid- and full-year earning calls, following the practice of most other UK and European public companies.”

Okay, except WPP is unlike most other UK and European public companies, at least in terms of experiencing dire financial straits. One would think Rose might feel obligated to appear at every earnings call to provide status reports on Eviscerate28.

Sadly, no one seems concerned about employees’ expectations.

WPP Reports Q1 Dip, In Line With Expectations

By Steve McClellan

WPP reported first quarter net revenues of 2.26 billion GBP ($3.05 billion), down 6.7% on an organic basis (excluding currency and M&A impact), in line with previous guidance from the company.

The firm reiterated that it expects a first half organic revenue decline in the mid-to-high single digits for the first half of 2026 “with an improving trajectory in the second half.” The firm also stated that full-year pre-tax profit margin is expected to be in the 12% to 13% range.

CEO Cindy Rose stated that the company’s latest turnaround plan unveiled in February is “resonating with clients and driving strong new business. While it is only a few months since we unveiled our Elevate28 strategy, I am encouraged by this momentum which validates the ‘Stabilization’ phase of the plan and our path to growth.”

Rose was not on the company’s earnings call, which is a departure from past practice during both the Mark Read and Martin Sorrell eras. It’s understood going forward that Rose will participate in the mid- and full-year earning calls, following the practice of most other UK and European public companies.

Major first quarter wins included being named Estée Lauder’s first-ever global media partner, and media assignment wins for Wendy’s, SC Johnson and Norwegian Cruise Lines in the US.

“Elevate28” is designed to stabilize the business this year, build momentum in 2027 and deliver sustained growth from 2028 and beyond.

The company said it would cut costs by 500 million GBP a year to help achieve the plan. That cost saving is expected to be fully achieved by 2028.

By business segment revenue, global integrated agencies were collectively down 7.4%, which the company attributed largely to prior year client losses. There was a sequential improvement from the 10%+ dip seen in Q4. PR was down 2.6% and specialist agencies were down 2.3%.

By region, North America declined 7.8% due largely to prior year client losses at WPP Media and spending cuts at Ogilvy and AKQA.

The UK declined 6.6%, Western Continental Europe saw a 4.7% shortfall, and the rest of the world combined was off 6.9%, driven by Asia Pacific (-8.2%). India grew 1.0% on new business wins, offset by China declines (-12.2%) on continued spending pressures and client losses. Middle East & Africa declined 11.1% on cuts to client spending caused by geopolitical strife in the Middle East.

Latin America was down 3.4% and Central & Eastern Europe declined less than 1%.

17453: How Banning Junk Food TV Advertising Might Junk Adland.

2026-04-27T14:40:00.001-05:00

MediaPost reported U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would support banning junk food TV advertising.

The devastating impact such a move would deliver to Adland immediately elevates Kennedy to White Man Of The Year contender.

RFK Jr. Supports Potential Ban On Junk Food TV Ads

By Tanya Gazdik

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he would support a ban on junk food TV ads.

“Speaking at a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing, ranking member Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said President Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, Casey Means, had recently told the panel she supports banning junk food ads on TV,” according to CNBC. “When asked whether he agrees with a ban, Kennedy said, ‘I would support that.’ But Kennedy also appeared to imply that he would want the effort to be voluntary for food companies.”

The food and restaurant industry spends about $14 billion annually for advertising in the U.S., according to an often-cited 2017 analysis of Nielsen data by the University of Connecticut's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health. Of this, over 80% promoted fast food, sugary drinks, candy, and unhealthy snacks.

“The Trump administration is looking into possible limits on junk food ads for children, according to a strategy report released by the Make America Healthy Again Commission last year,” according to Seeking Alpha.

The HHS and Federal Trade Commission, along with other relevant agencies, will explore the development of potential industry guidelines to limit the direct marketing of certain unhealthy foods to children, including by evaluating the use of misleading claims and imagery, according to the report.

Kennedy has been pushing food makers to remove petroleum-based dyes by the end of 2026. He also has actively pushed to restrict the types of foods allowed under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to exclude items considered unhealthy, such as soda and candy.

Last month, Kennedy chose Florida to roll out a new health initiative aimed at overhauling hospital food.

“Having revamped the food pyramid and pushed state food assistance programs to restrict soda and other processed foods, Kennedy has turned his sights on U.S. hospitals, arguing that providing healthy food to patients can aid healing and reduce readmissions,” according to Politico. “And the announcement taking place in Florida is another signal of the state’s continued alignment with MAHA movement priorities being heralded by the Trump administration.”

The U.S. is not the only country aiming to legislate wellness.

The U.K. Parliament just yesterday approved a law that bans the supply or sale of tobacco products to anyone born in 2009 or after, permanently.

“The bill applies to people currently 17 years old or younger and aims to keep them from ever picking up the habit in their lifetime,” according to The New York Times. “The proposal is expected to soon go into law after the final formality of approval by King Charles III.”

17452: Taking The Air Out Of Nike…?

2026-04-26T22:43:00.000-05:00

Glossy reported how certain shoe brands sought to capitalize on the Nike Boston Marathon stumble.

Not convinced leveraging a competitor’s cultural cluelessness creates a strong strategic platform.

A more appropriate response might be walking the high road. Or just walking away.

Nike’s marathon billboard backlash inspires new Asics and Ecco campaigns

By Zofia Zwieglinska

Following Nike’s Boston Marathon backlash, competitors jumped on the opportunity to define “movement” on their own terms, beyond the marathon run.

In the days leading up to Monday’s Boston Marathon, Nike installed a series of signs near its Newbury Street store, including one that read, “Runners welcome, walkers tolerated.” The message drew immediate criticism online, with runners calling out the wording as exclusionary, particularly given how common it is for participants at all levels to walk parts of a marathon.

On April 17, Nike removed the sign. In a statement released the same day, the company said, “We want more people to feel welcome in running—no matter their pace, experience, or the distance. During race week in Boston, we put up a series of signs to encourage runners. One of them missed the mark. We took it down, and we’ll use this moment to do better and continue showing up for all runners.”

The response from competitors in the running space was swift. Japanese running shoe brand Asics installed its own messaging in Boston over race weekend, with a billboard reading, “Runners. Walkers. All Welcome,” alongside the line, “Move your body, move your mind.” The phrasing echoed the brand’s broader campaign, which emphasizes the mental benefits of movement alongside physical performance, but its timing positioned it as a direct counterpoint to Nike’s misstep.

Danish shoe brand Ecco, meanwhile, used the moment to introduce a longer-term change in how it talks about movement.

Over the marathon weekend, in Boston, the brand launched “Walk Your Walk,” a global campaign centered on everyday movement, rather than performance sport. The campaign is anchored by the line, “No run intended. Walk your walk,” and positions walking as a primary use case rather than a secondary one.

Ecco’s global CMO, Ezra Martin, said the timing was not coincidental, though the brand’s aim was not to directly criticize Nike’s billboard.

“We always pay attention to what’s happening in culture,” Martin told Glossy. “We all saw what other brands were doing and saying in the space. Walking became sort of the centerpiece of the cultural lexicon in that moment in time, which made it a natural platform for us to have a point of view.”

Walking has become more culturally relevant in recent years, driven in part by trends like “hot girl walks,” coined on TikTok during the pandemic, and the wider move away from high-intensity workout culture and looksmaxing. At the same time, analysts including Circana have pointed to growing demand for comfort-led, everyday footwear, as shoppers look for products that fit into daily routines and a softer approach to fitness rather than just peak performance moments.

“Walking is becoming a symbol of accessible well-being,” Martin said, pointing to its physical, mental and social benefits. According to the National Library of Medicine, walking 9,000–10,000 steps a day can cut mortality risk by about 40% and cardiovascular disease by more than 20%, while even 10–30 minutes of brisk walking daily supports heart health, mental well-being and longevity. “Consumers are prioritizing longevity and quality of life,” said Martin.

The campaign also marks a new approach to brand building for Ecco.

“This marks a very purposeful movement into more of a brand-led conversation,” Martin said. “We want to build upper-funnel brand equity and not just do very product-led storytelling.”

Early signals suggest the message is resonating. “We saw record numbers of traffic hitting our site,” Martin said. “It showed that people were going beyond just liking something. They were sharing it, saving it, visiting the website and making a purchase.” The launch post has generated more than 123,000 likes on social, according to the brand, and driven a surge in engagement. The brand has 658,000 followers on Instagram.

On the ground in Boston, Ecco paired the campaign with light-touch activations, including product-trial moments.

“People really connected with the simplicity and inclusivity of the message,” Martin said. “The magic in our shoes is that the technology is invisible — we don’t have visible airbags or exaggerated outsoles like a Hoka, where you look at the shoe and immediately think it’s comfortable. Ours looks like a well-designed shoe, so the best way to understand it is to actually try it on.”

17451: Nike Just Blew It (Cont’d).

2026-04-25T11:53:00.005-05:00

Advertising Age published a perspective on the Nike Boston Marathon stumble, presented by a disability community advocate.

The viewpoint inadvertently underscores that confronting cultural cluelessness in Adland is a never-ending marathon.

How Nike’s Boston Marathon ad exposed a gap in disability fluency

By Kelsey Lindell

Last week, a Nike window a few blocks from the Boston Marathon finish line read “Runners welcome. Walkers tolerated.” The ad got pushback from the disability community and running community at large. The brand forgot that it’s completely normal to walk parts of the course, whether that is due to disability, or the fact that 26.2 miles is a very long run.

The company pulled the ad, saying it “missed the mark,” and replaced it with “Boston will always remind you, movement is what matters.” To Nike’s credit, the cleanup was fast and it’s a company that has invested heavily in accessibility in terms of product. But investing in product accessibility didn’t save the brand from a public snafu, or prevent competitors from taking ground with the community that Nike had been building towards for decades.

I wish Nike had considered our “Purple Framework,” which asks people to think about disability inclusion as the color purple: red represents accessibility and blue represents acceptance. Many brands, like Nike, invest heavily in adapting the product, or making sure that experiences are physically accessible. Far fewer invest in understanding disability culture.

Take, for example, NBCUniversal: In 2024, it launched new accessibility features around the same time Shane Gillis hosted “Saturday Night Live.” He used the R word multiple times in his opening monologue. You can create the most accessible products in the world, but if you don’t understand and care about our community, you’ll lose your investment fast. That’s precisely what happened with Nike.

While I’m always cheering for more disabled people to be in full-time creative roles, that’s not enough to solve this. A sign like “Walkers tolerated” doesn’t come from one person. It passes through: a brief, copywriter, strategist, designer, account lead, creative director and client review.

Dozens of people touched this before it hit the window, but none flagged it.

The creative community needs to treat disability fluency as the baseline of creative competency, because it is. Just like I need to understand nuances and best practices so I don’t accidentally create something full of microaggressions around race or gender, the creative community needs to understand the nuances and culture of disability.

Here’s what baseline fluency would have caught on the Nike sign:

How Boston Marathon history shapes disability inclusion

The sign went up about a week before Marathon Monday in a city where, in 2013, a bomb at the finish line produced a generation of amputee runners. Fifty years prior, Bob Hall cajoled the Boston Marathon’s race director into letting him onto the start line and the Boston Athletic Association formalized the wheelchair division in 1977. Boston became the first World Marathon Major to institutionalize wheelchair racing, and more than 1,900 wheelchair athletes have competed there since.

The Boston Marathon has an entire inclusive ecosystem: the Wheelchair Division with its own qualifying standards and prize money, a Para Athletics Division, an Adaptive Program for Runners, a Handcycle Program and Duo Teams. Runners with vision impairments race with up to two guide runners. Para athletes get their own staging areas, their own bus load-ins, their own classification processes.

Why ad copy language matters for disability culture

“Tolerated” isn’t a neutral word in the disability community. It’s the word that sits at the top of every policy fight about disabled people’s right to exist in public space for the last fifty years. Using it casually in ad copy is the disability equivalent of using “blind spot” casually in a DEI conversation. It lands hard because it has history.

Nike wanted competitive pride, but the line they wrote wasn’t rooted in celebration of athletic excellence; it was rooted in exclusion. Meanwhile, Nike is in the middle of a running comeback. The brand has been losing ground in specialty running to Brooks, Hoka, On, New Balance, Asics and Saucony. The “Walkers tolerated” sign didn’t just alienate disabled runners, but anyone beginning to see themselves as an athlete. Those are exactly the customers Nike is trying to win back.

How Nike’s competitors responded to the disability backlash

The brands that moved fastest are also the brands gaining on Nike in specialty. Brands that can read the room on disability and inclusive language now have a real window for cheap, fast, high-resonance moves. Brands that can’t are going to be left in the dust.

Within 72 hours of Nike’s sign going viral, five competitors moved. Asics put up a billboard 1 mile from the finish line outside Fenway Park, reading “Runners. Walkers. All welcome,” Ecco went bigger—billboards across Boston reading “No run intended. Walk your walk,” plus a giveaway of 100 pairs of sneakers to everyday walkers and marathon spectators, and on-route cheering stations for “runners and walkers alike with equal enthusiasm.”

Altra posted on Instagram: “Run. Walk. Crawl. Go where you’re celebrated. Not where you’re tolerated. Good luck to everyone running (or walking) Boston on Monday.” Hoka kept it simple: “No matter what pace, we fly together.” Adidas—the title sponsor of the Boston Marathon, whose spotlight Nike was trying to steal with this guerrilla activation, commented directly on adaptive runner Robyn Michaud’s Instagram post with a single line: “Every pace has a pace.” Five competitors in three days, and four of them don’t even have adaptive product lines. Nike does.

Why brands must treat disability inclusion as a cultural imperative

This is the cleanest case for our Purple Framework I’ve seen: you can invest millions into accessible products and still lose the disability community overnight if your cultural understanding hasn’t kept pace.

The fix isn’t complicated: give your teams enough time and cultural grounding to actually care about what they’re making. I absolutely do not think that any of the creatives on this project sought out to alienate 25% of the population with $13 trillion in spending. Culture moves fast. While we encourage everyone to co-create with the community, the way we prevent cultural faux pas while working at lightning speed is by giving everyone the same frameworks to self-correct.

None of this is rocket science. The frameworks needed to audit are learnable in a day, and we often deliver it to teams in microdosed portions. It’s the same cultural fluency a good creative has always been expected to develop. Disability is only represented in 1% of ads, so while it’s understandable that this is a growth area for most creatives, it begs the question: what are brands doing to fix it?

Strategic inclusion is not just a matter of “being a good person.” The people who worked on this ad are likely all wonderful, kind people who would never want to hurt people with disabilities. But those of us who create content create culture—and we need to treat disability as more than a compliance checkpoint and embrace it for the multifaceted, multidimensional community that it is.

Kelsey Lindell is the founder + CEO of Misfit Media, a disability culture consultancy that helps the world’s greatest storytellers and creative teams get strategic inclusion right.

17450: Campaign Wins Best DEI Coverage Of Worst DEI Industry…?

2026-04-24T13:20:00.002-05:00

Campaign announced its US publication won Best DEI Coverage at the 72nd annual Jesse H. Neal Awards.

Okay, but covering DEIBA+ in Adland—as a trade publication—involves presenting content to a disinterested, indifferent, and/or insular audience.

Campaign US wins Best DEI Coverage at 2026 Neal Awards

The prestigious editorial award marks a first for the US business publication.

By Campaign Staff

Campaign US won a top honor at the 72nd annual Jesse H. Neal Awards in New York City on Tuesday.

The U.S. advertising publication received the award for Best DEI Coverage in the category of brand revenue of less than $3 million. The Jesse H. Neal Awards are deemed the most prestigious editorial honors in the field of specialized journalism, often referred to as “Pulitzers of B2B journalism.” Named after Jesse H. Neal, the first managing director of American Business Media, the Neal Awards were established in 1955 to recognize and reward editorial excellence in business media.

“We are proud to receive this award and be recognized for our efforts to ensure our editorial coverage is a reflection of today’s world,” states Luz Corona, editor of Campaign US. “As the only all-women reporting team in the advertising industry, Campaign US organically brings forth diverse expertise and lived experiences in its reporting. We are united in our commitment to tell the stories of the creatives behind breakthrough work and hold the industry accountable in important areas such as diversity and equity, workplace policies and issues and cultural blunders.”

Campaign US takes a sharp focus on the U.S. advertising market, backed by the power of a global network of journalists and leading industry brands. Its mission is simple yet critical: In a volatile, uncertain and divided world, Campaign makes sense of the things that matter in the advertising industry and “help our people solve problems, be inspired and be better informed.” This mission reflects the larger commitment to impact and sustainability shared by its parent company, Haymarket Media Group, which recently earned B Corp certification.

Examples of Campaign coverage include:

The Cannes Lions inclusivity report: Who’s really being seen — and who’s still missing?

Data journalist Cecilia Garzella examines 50+ winning/shortlisted U.S. ad campaigns from the 2025 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, based on SeeMe Index's responsible AI analysis.

PSAs from CoorDown, Ad Council and AARP sound off on ‘Pretirement’ and World Down Syndrome Day

Senior reporter Leslie Blount highlights Public Service Announcements addressing "Pretirement" (relevant to Black women’s low retirement savings) and World Down Syndrome Day, also covering organizations promoting accessibility, a compelling issue amid political cuts to disability benefits.

6 Black executives sound off on the obstacles and opportunities ahead

Blount gauges how top Black ad execs have managed day-to-day business in the face of the Trump administration’s strident anti-diversity rhetoric in early 2025.

The Best DEI Coverage award was presented to the Campaign US staff, which includes: Luz Corona, editor of Campaign US; Leslie Blount, senior reporter; Cecilia Garzella, data journalist; Julia Walker, reporter; Emma Thumann, reporter.

Campaign’s sister publications in the Haymarket Media portfolio also brought home Neal Awards. MM+M was awarded Best Single Issue of a Tabloid/Newspaper/Magazine for a brand with revenue between $3 million and $7 million for its 2025 Agency 100 issue. PRWeek won Best Podcast for a brand with revenue between $3 million and $7 million helmed by senior producer of podcasts Bill Fitzpatrick.

17449: Putting The Anal In Analyst.

2026-04-23T22:39:00.000-05:00

Advertising Age presented content titled, “3 misconceptions fueling pessimism about ad agencies—and signals that they’re overblown.”

Okay, except the article is based on a report published by an advisory and consulting firm’s industry analyst whose CV includes stints as a senior executive at IPG and WPP.

Given that IPG was erased and WPP is a flaming dumpster, what is the value of perspectives from a White man who toiled at such places?

In Adland, those who can, do; those who can’t, analyze for consultancies.

3 misconceptions fueling pessimism about ad agencies—and signals that they’re overblown

By Ewan Larkin

Ad agencies have taken a beating in perception, battered by AI anxiety, restructurings and a string of layoffs. In a report published today, Brian Wieser, principal at advisory and consulting firm Madison and Wall, argues the sector is being misread.

The prevailing narrative that automation, in-housing and client cutbacks are slowly hollowing out the agency business is largely a story about a handful of struggling public companies, not the industry as a whole, Wieser said. His analysis, which draws on a new data set covering 17 publicly traded agency groups and hundreds of independent, privately held companies, claims that the industry is more profitable and durable than many believe.

Ad Age dives into Wieser’s key takeaways below.

The agency sector is growing, just not like it used to

The struggles of agency holding companies including WPP and Dentsu have shaped what Wieser sees as a misinterpretation of the U.S. industry’s health. Revenue at private independents—which account for roughly two-thirds of the U.S. agency business—grew about 2% in 2025, compared to just 0.5% growth across all publicly listed agencies, Wieser wrote.

“Many people conflate public companies as being the industry,” Wieser said in an interview.

Excluding political agencies, which skew industry data in election years, Wieser forecasts roughly 2% revenue growth annually through 2030, compared to approximately 1.5% growth in 2025. While that’s up, it’s also a deceleration from the 4% to 6% growth the industry enjoyed in the pre-pandemic years, which Wieser acknowledges is unlikely to return.

AI isn’t gutting the agency business, at least not yet

The inexorable rise of generative AI has prompted long-term concerns about ad agencies, putting pressure on the shares of the industry’s biggest players. Agency holding companies have attempted to quell the damage: Stagwell ramped up its share buyback program to signal confidence in its growth, while Publicis Groupe Chairman and CEO Arthur Sadoun drew a sharp distinction between his company and rivals, which he accused of squeezing margins to please Wall Street.

Wieser sees the anxiety around AI as overblown, at least in the short term. A Madison and Wall report published in March, based on direct conversations with senior technology and strategy leadership at most of the largest agency groups, found that clients are not cutting budgets in response to AI, but asking for more. “The tools are real. The investment is real. The financial impact, so far, is not,” Wieser wrote in the March report.

That agencies’ financial trajectories have arguably improved in 2026 rather than worsened, Wieser added in today’s report, only amplifies that point. There may come a time when AI’s financial impact on agencies becomes material, “but we’re still a long way away from that world,” he added. For now, he argued, agencies have adapted, deploying AI tools while leaning on what machines cannot yet replicate, the human judgment and knowledge required to sell ideas.

In-housing isn’t displacing agencies

Marketers have been building in-house agencies for decades; the share with internal capabilities nearly doubled from 42% to 82% between 2008 and 2023, according to the Association of National Advertisers.

Wieser, however, argues that the ANA’s figure obscures what’s actually happening: his own analysis of the trade group’s data suggests those marketers account for only around 10% of total agency-related work, despite years of in-housing efforts. “Lost revenues from in-sourcing have likely been offset by growing revenue streams from emerging marketers who historically performed all marketing in-house (as most companies do from their earliest stages),” he wrote.

17448: Earth Day 2026 In Adland.

2026-04-22T15:46:00.006-05:00

The theme for Earth Day 2026—Our Power, Our Planet—presents added meanings in Adland.

First, the event spotlights industry hypocrisy.

MediaPost reported industry advocacy group Clean Creatives published an open letter to executives at Netflix, which is running a review for its media business in Europe, The Middle East, and Africa.

Clean Creatives urged Netflix to add “fossil-free procurement” as an eligibility requirement. This would impact possible contenders Omnicom, WPP, and Dentsu, as all have fossil fuel contracts.

The Clean Creatives open letter states, “If the agencies pitching for Netflix's business won’t drop fossil fuels, Netflix should drop them.”

Stay tuned on that drama.

Second, the event spotlights industry exclusivity.

Adland arguably takes advantage of White power to dominate the world. That is, White advertising agencies—within holding companies and independent—embrace systemic racism to globally foster inequality.

The ruling majority in Adland seemingly declares, “We’ll use our power to rule our planet.”

Clean Creatives To Netflix: Pick ‘Fossil-Free’ Ad Agencies

By Steve McClellan

Industry advocacy group Clean Creatives has published an open letter to officials at Netflix, currently conducting a media agency review in Europe, The Middle East and Africa, urging the company to add “fossil-free procurement” as part of the eligibility criteria for the assignment.

The company’s estimated net media spend for the region is $190 million, according to agency research firm COMvergence.

It’s believed that Omnicom, WPP and Dentsu are vying for the contract and CC notes that following its acquisition of Interpublic, Omnicom now holds 120 “active or recent” fossil fuel contracts, while WPP has 82 and Dentsu 18.

“As creatives, filmmakers, and climate communicators, we are frequently inspired by the stories Netflix tells – and by the investments Netflix has made to tell them responsibly,” the CC letter states.

“Our planet is at a tipping point, not just in terms of our climate, but in our culture. Fossil fuel companies, aided by PR and media agencies, are contributing to a misinformation crisis that is making climate progress harder to achieve. Netflix has invested real resources in decarbonizing its supply chain. But the agency supply chain, where narrative power lives, hasn't been examined.”

It urged the streaming giant to make fossil-free agency procurement an explicit criterion for the current EMEA review and establish it as a standard going forward. CC noted that there are more than 1,500 agencies worldwide that have pledged to refuse fossil fuel clients.

“Choosing one of these pledged agencies is a low-friction, high-return climate action that is consistent with the commitments Netflix has already made,” the letter states. “If the agencies pitching for Netflix's business won't drop fossil fuels, Netflix should drop them.”

Netflix representatives could not be immediately reached for comment.

17447: Overreaction Of The Week.

2026-04-22T00:20:00.003-05:00

Another sign that the Apocalypse is upon Adland.

Advertising Age reported Nike—yes, Nike—got kicked for cultural cluelessness stemming from Boston Marathon advertising that read, “Runners welcome. Walkers tolerated.”

Online backlash charged Nike displayed “lack of inclusivity and elitist athletic view.”

It’s a wonder no one thought walkers referred to mobility aids for adults—otherwise, the outrage would have included accusations of ageism.

Nike removes ‘walkers tolerated’ sign following backlash as rivals post more inclusive views

By Adrianne Pasquarelli

Nike landed in hot water this week for an ad outside its Boston store ahead of the Boston Marathon on Monday. The sign, which read “Runners welcome. Walkers tolerated,” invited broad online backlash for its lack of inclusivity and elitist athletic view. Nike removed the sign on Friday and issued a statement.

“We want more people to feel welcome in running—no matter their pace, experience or the distance,” the sportswear giant wrote in a statement provided to Ad Age. “During race week in Boston, we put up a series of signs to encourage runners. One of them missed the mark. We took it down, and we’ll use this moment to do better and continue showing up for all runners.”

“Many people taking on the marathon next week will walk all or part of it. For them, what does a message like this say? Does it inspire, or does it exclude?,” wrote Dr. Hussain Al-Zubaidi on Instagram. Others noted the importance of all types of marathon participants.

“To every midpack mom, every charity bib, every comeback story, every person who started late, every person who finished slow and cried anyway. You are not tolerated. You are the point,” wrote Theresa Seitz, author of “Built to Finish,” on Instagram.

It was a rare advertising misstep from a brand that has typically celebrated all athletic achievements with its “Just Do It” mantra. It also opened the door to rivals to step in and promote their support for all types of runners. Both Hoka and Altra posted messages of inclusivity following Nike’s backtracking.

Nike has struggled in recent years to resonate with customers eager for innovation. A turnaround strategy under CEO Elliott Hill has yet to show meaningful effect. The company reported flat revenue of $11.3 billion for its most recent quarter and forecast a 2% to 4% revenue decline for the current quarter. Earlier this month, Hill reportedly told staffers he was tired of talking about fixing Nike. “I want to move to inspiring and driving growth and having fun,” Bloomberg reported he said.

17446: Previewing, Purging, And Pruning Problems At WPP.

2026-04-21T14:21:00.012-05:00

Burson Is Not the Problem headlines a LinkedIn article commenting on the proposed pruning of PR from the global flaming dumpster known as WPP.

The commentator opined abandoning Burson makes sense. “Following their clients’ lead,” wrote the author, “WPP is doubling down on a model built around media, data and integration at global scale.”

The strategic maneuvers highlighted in the LinkedIn article seem to indicate WPP is embracing a media-first identity.

Okay, except WPP Media is hardly viewed as category leader.

Holding companies—as well as corporations purporting not to be holding companies—have fueled the commoditization of Adland, whereby all people, practices, processes, products, and platforms are repetitive, redundant, and replaceable.

WPP Media is a fish in a small sea of sameness.

What’s more, WPP Media is attached to mediocre network units:

• WPP Creative erased almost all the iconic creative mastheads—and it’s now run by the leader of VML. Nuff said.

• WPP Enterprise Solutions features everything historically labeled “below-the-line”—allegedly available at costs below the industry standards.

• WPP Production is the in-house studio on a global scale, providing cheap labor via offshore resources—exactly like the offerings of every holding company.

• WPP Open is the AI equivalent of Omni, Publicis Sapient, dentsu.Connect, AVA, and whatever Stagwell cobbles together.

In summation, Burson is not the problem. WPP is.

Burson Is Not the Problem.

By Arthur Fleischmann

It’s The Preview.

There’s a slightly unfashionable take on the proposed sale of #Burson. It probably makes sense.

Not because Burson is weak. Quite the opposite. It’s a near-billion-dollar global business, built by combining BCW and Hill & Knowlton, and still winning clients like Heineken, Levi’s and Google. It continues to invest in new capabilities — from AI-driven reputation tools to expanded influence and corporate strategy.

By any normal definition, it’s a strong, well-run business.

But #CindyRose has been very clear about #WPP’s direction. And if you look at where WPP is winning, the logic starts to reveal itself.

Over the past six months, the pattern is hard to ignore. The biggest wins are not coming from traditional creative. They are not coming from PR. They are overwhelmingly media-led, often global, and increasingly tied to data, commerce and AI-enabled operating models.

#JaguarLandRover is the obvious headline — a roughly $500M global mandate spanning media and creative. But it’s the exception that proves the rule. Most of the other meaningful wins are media at scale: #EstéeLauder’s global media consolidation, #Reckitt across Europe and India, #SCJohnson in North America, #IKEA in Malaysia. Even where creative is involved, it tends to sit inside a broader, integrated system.

And just as interesting is where these decisions are being made.

They’re not particularly U.S.-centric anymore.

That doesn’t mean the U.S. is necessarily declining. It does suggest something subtler: global brands are no longer organizing themselves around it. Coordination is moving. Singapore. London. Regional hubs. Multi-market systems. Growth coming from outside North America, and increasingly managed that way too.

Following their clients’ lead, WPP is doubling down on a model built around media, data and integration at global scale.

The issue is not whether Burson is good. It is. The issue is where value now sits.

Even the strongest PR firms do not control media budgets. They do not own the first-party data infrastructure that increasingly drives modern marketing. They do not sit at the centre of AI-enabled operating systems. And too often their revenues are still project-based rather than embedded in the day-to-day machinery of growth.

This calls into question other businesses in a similar predicament such as @Landor, @Ogilvy, @David, @Grey, @AKQA and other smaller networks within WPP.

Burson, and these other business units look less like a problem and more like a mismatch. They are largely narrative-led, market-by-market-relevant, and harder to plug into a global operating system in the same way as media and data. Sure, their services matter. They’re valuable. But it’s not at the centre of this particular strategy or clients’ focus at the moment.

I take an uncynical view of this sale. Rather than seeing it as a weakness or failure, I believe it is an act of focus. The bigger question is, who will buy Burson, and what does that say about the buyer’s strategy?

For WPP, this is an acknowledgement that the shape of the industry has changed — and not every strong business still sits at the centre of it.

17445: WPP Media QSR WTF.

2026-04-20T22:33:00.009-05:00

MediaPost reported WPP Media was named integrated media agency for KFC and Pizza Hut in Singapore, allegedly after a competitive shootout.

The four-sentence report stated spending for the brands was not disclosed; plus, incumbents and competitors were not identified.

Was the victory sealed via Corporate Cultural Collusion, cronyism, or colonization? Probably a conspiratorial combination of all three.

WPP Media Wins KFC, Pizza Hut Singapore Assignments

By Steve McClellan

WPP Media has been appointed integrated media agency for KFC Singapore and Pizza Hut Singapore, following a competitive pitch.

The agency’s remit includes media strategy, planning, and buying for both brands across the market.

Spending was not disclosed, and the incumbents on the account were not identified.

WPP Media has existing relationships with both brands, working with them in parts of Europe, Asia Pacific, and other regions.

17444: FCB Health Transformed To Olixir.

2026-04-19T19:30:00.002-05:00

Omnicom published a press release announcing the White healthcare agency formerly known as FCB Health New York is being renamed Olixer New York, partly because the FCB masthead was erased when Omnicom acquired the White holding company formerly known as IPG.

The name combines the Omnicom ‘O’ with ‘elixir’ to underscore the mediocre creativity prevalent in pharmaceutical marketing.

The move also underscores the shuffling shitshow resulting from the acquisition.

Most of the White advertising agencies were blended into legacy mastheads including TBWA, BBDO, and McCann—all under the umbrella of Omnicom Advertising.

Olixir likely launched to appease clients and address conflicts—also underscoring Omnicom’s commitment to the health and wellness of its shareholders.

BTW, the name isn’t original, as evidenced by the logos below.

FCB Health New York Becomes Olixir New York, Launching a New Global Brand for Omnicom Health

Rebrand marks the evolution of one of healthcare marketing’s most awarded agencies, with plans to expand the new brand beyond the US

NEW YORK, April 15, 2026 – Omnicom Health today announced that FCB Health New York, one of the most awarded agencies in healthcare marketing, is rebranding to become Olixir New York – the first chapter of a new global brand that’s launching in the US and will soon expand to additional markets. The move marks the next evolution of Omnicom Health’s healthcare professional and consumer advertising offering, pairing the agency’s legacy of creative excellence with the scale, connectivity and AI‑enabled capabilities of the broader network. Proven network veterans Linda Bennett and Kathleen Nanda will continue to lead as President and Chief Creative Officer, respectively.

“FCB Health NY has never stood still, and Olixir NY reflects that same drive to keep evolving for clients and relentlessly seeking what’s next,” said Bennett. “We’re building on a powerful legacy with a brand designed for what modern healthcare marketing demands – bold thinking, deeper connectivity and access to the full strength of Omnicon Health’s talent, capabilities and intelligence.”

Olixir takes inspiration from the word ‘elixir’ and marries it with the Omnicom ‘O’ to demonstrate the magic that happens when its storied success, creative and strategic prowess and commitment to innovation are paired with the breadth and depth of the interconnected network’s vast resources and AI‑enabled capabilities.

“Our evolution to Olixir NY reflects exactly who we are – fearless creators and thinkers who stop at nothing to improve lives,” said Nanda. “Our clients trust us to spark understanding, shift mindsets and show people there is a better way. That drive comes from one question we ask ourselves every day: Where else? Where else will you find a bench this deep that leads with grit, passion and ingenuity? The answer has pushed us into our next era.”

This transformation comes on the heels of a momentous 2025 for the agency, with wins including “Agency of the Year – Category I” at the Manny Awards and multiple prestigious creative award wins across shows including The One Show, D&AD, London International Awards, MM+M Awards, Creative Floor Awards and more. Its renowned and award‑winning Snowball, The Trial for #ClinicalEquality and Disappearing Doctors campaigns are in their second, fifth and seventh year, respectively, demonstrating the agency’s longstanding commitment to important causes and using their creative firepower for good.

About Olixir New York

Olixir NY is a full‑service healthcare marketing agency built on the legacy of FCB Health New York, one of the industry’s most awarded agencies. Combining creative excellence and strategic depth with the scale, connectivity and AI‑enabled capabilities of Omnicom Health, Olixir NY helps health and life sciences brands spark understanding, shift mindsets and drive meaningful impact. Powered by Omni and Acxiom’s unparalleled life sciences data, Olixir delivers faster, smarter, more human solutions for clients across the healthcare landscape. Olixir NY is part of Omnicom Health, the world’s leading healthcare marketing communications network. Visit OlixirNY.com to learn more.

About Omnicom Health

Omnicom Health is the world’s leading and most awarded healthcare marketing communications network designed to accelerate intelligent growth for health and life sciences brands. Uniting best‑in‑class healthcare professional and consumer advertising agencies and specialized capabilities including patient engagement and support, medical communications, market access and more – we deliver connected solutions that drive measurable impact across the full healthcare landscape. Powered by Omni and Acxiom’s unparalleled life sciences data, we drive faster, smarter, human solutions for clients including Fortune 500 pharma and life sciences companies and countless startups, biotech and biopharma companies. We are part of Omnicom (NYSE: OMC). Learn more at omnicomhealth.com.

17443: Burson, Ya Burnt…?

2026-04-18T00:08:00.000-05:00

More About Advertising reported WPP plans to sell Burson, the PR behemoth created two years ago by blending Burson Cohn & Wolfe and Hill & Knowlton.

When birthing Burson in 2024, former WPP CEO Mark Read gushed, “Hill & Knowlton and BCW are two high-performing businesses with complementary strengths, shared ambitions, and many shared clients... The new agency will be the standard bearer as the most modern, strategic, technology-driven, full-service communications offer in the industry.”

Looks like Read’s words were puffery, hype, and/or bullshit.

Funny thing is, WPP could benefit from having onboard PR professionals to fabricate positive press releases now.

BCW on the block as WPP weighs exit from PR

By Stephen Foster

WPP is reportedly planning a sale of Burson, what’s left of its rambling array of PR businesses. Burson is an amalgam of BCW (Burson plus Cohn & Wolfe) and Hill & Knowlton, once the biggest in the UK.

In 2024 WPP sold a majority stake in FGS Global, its other big PR business, to private equity firm KKR which valued the financial-based firm at £1.3bn. Goldman Sach is lined up to handle any new sale.

PR let the side down in WPP’s latest accounts, revenue falling 6%. The business has changed dramatically with the rise of platforms like TikTok and Instagram and multifarious influencers taking away slices of budget. No one yet has put a price on BCW.

WPP founder and former boss Sir Martin Sorrell recently observed that PR had become rather a waste of time as a separate discipline, instead it should be seen as an aspect of advertising. WPP’s Ogilvy does, indeed, have a big PR operation. Whatever BCW makes, WPP must be hoping that any sale process reduces its debt, still hovering around the £3bn mark. Its current market value is “just” £2.69bn.

17442: Buh-Bye, Bob Liodice.

2026-04-17T00:08:00.000-05:00

Advertising Age spotlighted ANA CEO Bob Liodice, who will step down from his role at the end of 2026, prompting the search for a successor.

The ANA declared, “The next CEO will build on ANA’s scale and influence while advancing its role as the industry’s guide through the most significant shift in modern marketing—where artificial intelligence is reshaping how value is created, measured and sustained.”

Sounds like a perfect opportunity to innovate toward the inevitable.

That is, replace Liodice with an AI platform.

It’ll even offer nice alliteration and decent logo potential: ANA AI

ANA CEO Bob Liodice to step down

By E.J. Schultz

Bob Liodice will step down as CEO of the Association of National Advertisers at the end of the year, ending a more than two-decade run as leader of the nation’s largest marketing industry trade group.

The ANA has hired a search firm to find a new CEO. The organization declined to name the firm but confirmed the process will be overseen by ANA board chairman Dean Aragón, who is CEO and vice chair of Shell Brands International, and Procter & Gamble Co. Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard, the prior ANA chair.

“The next CEO will build on ANA’s scale and influence while advancing its role as the industry’s guide through the most significant shift in modern marketing—where artificial intelligence is reshaping how value is created, measured and sustained,” the ANA shared in a statement.

Liodice, 70, has been with the ANA for 31 years, serving as CEO since 2003. ANA credited him with growing the organization’s membership from 188 companies to more than 1,600, representing over 20,000 brands and 50,000 marketing professionals worldwide.

In an interview, Liodice pointed to recent work done to restructure the ANA into what he described as eight “mini associations” spanning specialty areas: brand, media, data, technology, measurement, talent, inclusive marketing and business-to-business marketing. “Each of these business teams are now focused in on what we consider to be the primary drivers of growth for our unique members,” he said.

With the reorganization complete, it is time “to turn over the ANA to the next generation of leadership, whoever that leader is, whether they be sourced internally, but most probably externally,” he added.

Fixing a ‘broken organization’

Liodice, who earlier in his career held marketing and sales roles at Grupo Televisa and Kraft General Foods, joined the ANA in 1995 as a senior VP. He stepped into the CEO role eight years later, succeeding John Sarsen. It was a tumultuous time, as ANA dealt with financial challenges, as well as criticism for letting media sponsors program its flagship conference that often resulted in thinly veiled sales pitches from the stage, Ad Age reported at the time.

“We stopped that,” Liodice recalled this week. “It was distasteful to many of our brand marketers.”

The ANA at the time was “somewhat of a broken organization,” he said. “We were a hairbreadth away from being out of business,” he added, recalling that when he took over in January 2003, the ANA had $28,000 in the bank and was “nearly bankrupt.”

The ANA, which is a tax-exempt nonprofit, reported $80.4 million in revenue for 2024, up from $65.6 million in 2023, according to its latest tax filings. Expenses grew to $82.2 million from $64.3 million. Liodice’s compensation was listed as $1.5 million as of the 2024 filing. The ANA employs about 200 full-time employees today, according to a representative.

Liodice said the group’s recent jump in expenses was partially due to costs related to its recent formation of Aquila, an ANA-backed cross-platform media measurement venture designed to help marketers reduce wasteful media spending by eliminating excess frequency.

Dealing with agency tensions

Improving the media supply chain for brands has been among Liodice’s key priorities. The ANA drew widespread attention in 2016 when it published a report prepared by investigative firm K2 alleging that media agencies were benefiting from non-transparent practices, including collecting cash rebates for media deals not disclosed to advertisers. While specific agency names were not listed, the report still drew complaints from agency players, including agency trade organization 4As, which at the time accused the ANA of taking a “one-sided” approach.

It was an example of how the ANA and 4As over the years have vacillated between being allies and opponents, depending on the issue.

Liodice, in this week’s interview, said the K2 report came at a “very challenging time.”

“Relationships were, in fact, damaged at that stage,” he said. But he suggested that tensions eased after Marla Kaplowitz took over as 4As president-CEO in 2017, succeeding Nancy Hill. “She and I got along famously, and we made it our joint commitment to repair whatever damage and work harmoniously together,” Liodice said.

Kaplowitz departed 4As in 2025 and was succeeded by Justin Thomas-Copeland.

Growing ANA membership and dealing with rising event competition

The ANA’s membership growth during Liodice’s tenure in part stemmed from the acquisition of five industry associations: Brand Activation Association, Business Marketing Association, Advertising Educational Foundation, Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association and the Data and Marketing Association. Those acquisitions are helping fuel attendance at the more than 60 conferences the ANA puts on each year, including its flagship Masters of Marketing conference held in Orlando every fall, which drew about 2,500 attendees in 2025.

But the ANA has had to deal with rising competition from newer events put on by other marketing and media organizations. That includes the Possible conference, held in the spring in Miami Beach, which last year drew 5,400 attendees (albeit with some complaints about top executives being secluded behind closed doors).

“We honestly feel like we don’t compete against Possible,” Liodice said. He suggested the ANA’s differentiation from that and other events is its singular focus on brand marketers. Its global CMO Growth Council, for example, “continues to expand and has about 500 active CMOs,” he said.

Aragón, in a statement, credited Liodice for expanding the ANA’s influence and playing a “central role in advancing the standards and practices that define modern marketing.”

As he steps away, Liodice said he is looking forward to getting “a little more balance in my life.” He estimated that he has been traveling 15 to 20 weeks each year, including this week, when he attended the ANA’s Masters of Data conference in San Diego.

Bob’s final message to CMOs

On stage, Liodice is known for asking presenters what message audience members should take back to the office with them on Mondays. Ad Age turned the tables on him, asking him for his final piece of advice for chief marketing officers:

“Drink in as much as you can drink in— and to let your common sense prevail,” he said. “We lose sight of the value of common sense and try to sometimes get overly prescriptive in making decisions. But I do believe a CMO has achieved that stature because of their not only their integrity and their ethics, but their ability to navigate these complexities with incredible common sense and decision making that has been honed over the years.”

17441: Dentsu Creative Transformation Lost In Translation…?

2026-04-16T14:56:00.002-05:00

Advertising Age reported on leadership musical chairs playing at Dentsu Creative, an enterprise whose name has always been an oxymoron.

The latest moves include the US CEO and Global Brand President bailing out for another opportunity, and she’ll be semi-replaced by a Dentsu executive assuming an alternative title—CEO of the Americas—with different responsibilities.

The scenario presents an example of restructuring via deconstructing, resigning, and regurgitating.

Another noteworthy point is both executives mentioned above are not original creatives. That is, they never held true creative director titles or duties.

When Dentsu Creative launched in 2022, there was a Global Chief Creative Officer—although he quickly evacuated too.

Now, Dentsu Creative is regionally run by non-creative types, apparently supported by executives with creative backgrounds.

Dentsu Creative hypes itself with a tagline that reads: The Power of Transformative Creativity.

Okay, except variations on “transform” are among the top clichéd buzzwords in Adland. What’s more, the Dentsu Creative website doesn’t clearly explain its transformative offerings at all.

Dentsu Creative seems to be constantly transforming—in ways that are corporate versus creative.

Abbey Klaassen is leaving Dentsu Creative to join Tinuiti

By Ewan Larkin

Abbey Klaassen is leaving Dentsu Creative, where she most recently served as U.S. CEO and global brand president, to become CEO of performance marketing agency Tinuiti.

Klaassen succeeds Zach Morrison, who will step back from his day-to-day role after 21 years leading and building Tinuiti, which is backed by private equity firm New Mountain Capital and has roughly 1,200 employees.

Klaassen, a former Ad Age editor and associate publisher, rose quickly through the ranks at Dentsu. She held key positions at digital shop 360i before its consolidation into Dentsu Creative and subsequently served as president of the unit’s New York office. She was named Dentsu Creative U.S. CEO in 2023 and later added global oversight.

At Tinuiti, Klaassen will work to demonstrate how the agency is more than a performance shop. Tinuiti has expanded beyond its search-and-social roots into full-funnel work, including buying 2026 Super Bowl spots for brands such as Instacart and Liquid I.V., according to an agency statement. Tinuiti was also recently named full-funnel media agency of record for children’s apparel company Carter’s Inc., working across the U.S. and Canada. It nabbed that account from Stagwell’s Assembly, a sign that Tinuiti is competing not just against performance agencies like Wpromote.

Tinuiti has also named Bryan Wiener chairman of its board. He previously served as CEO of Publicis Groupe-owned digital commerce analytics firm Profitero+ and recently launched 37Arc, an AI firm focused on chief marketing officers. Wiener will work closely with Klaassen, with whom he overlapped during his time as chairman of 360i.

Klaassen’s departure comes as Dentsu deals with headwinds. The Japanese agency group in March appointed Takeshi Sano as global CEO, part of a broader reset after it explored selling its struggling international business—such a deal is now off the table—and reported its worst annual loss last year. Dentsu Creative has shed some lucrative accounts in recent years, including work with Subway and American Express, but recently notched a win with Farmers Insurance.

:::::

How Dentsu Creative is rethinking its US leadership

By Ewan Larkin

Dentsu Creative is not directly replacing Abbey Klaassen, its U.S. CEO and global brand president, who is leaving to become CEO of performance marketing agency Tinuiti. Instead, the agency is restructuring the role, naming Dentsu veteran Phil Gaughran CEO of the Americas and expanding the position beyond the U.S.

Gaughran assumes the role after serving as president, global creative product, growth and strategy at Dentsu. Global responsibilities previously held by Klaassen will be supported by Yasuharu Sasaki, Dentsu’s global chief creative officer, along with a group of existing leaders across strategy, growth and creative.

Inside the move and Dentsu Creative’s strategy

A strategist by trade, Gaughran has spent 16 years with Dentsu, including more than a decade at Dentsumcgarrybowen and in corporate strategy roles. “He does some of his best work on a barstool, sharing a pint and a point of view towards solving some of the world’s problems,” his bio on Dentsu’s website reads.

Gaughran’s new role mirrors that of Beth Ann Kaminkow, who in March was named Dentsu’s Americas CEO after previously only leading North America. (Kaminkow has also added the global chief client officer title.) The restructure is designed to align leadership across the region and simplify how Dentsu Creative serves clients, while better connecting creative capabilities in the U.S., Canada and Latin America.

“We often have U.S.-based clients that extend into Canada and are either looking at Brazil or other high-profile markets, or they want a through line where everything from our offshoring capabilities, to our technology, to what we provide on the ground is all linked up,” Gaughran said in an interview alongside Kaminkow.

Gaughran’s business and client experience made him best suited for the position, said Kaminkow, adding that he has also been active in new business pitches, including Adobe’s creative review. The move also “felt like an obvious choice to create consistency with clients and continuity of service,” said Kaminkow, who joined Dentsu from WPP’s VML.

Gaughran’s appointment comes as Dentsu deals with headwinds. The Japanese agency group in March appointed Takeshi Sano as global CEO, part of a broader reset after it explored selling its struggling international business—such a deal is now off the table—and reported its worst annual loss last year.

Despite some high-profile client losses over the past year, including work with Subway, T-Mobile and American Express, Kaminkow and Gaughran stressed that Dentsu Creative is “healthy” and improving. The agency recently notched a win with Farmers Insurance, which had been with incumbent RPA since 2010.

Gaughran described the past few years as something of a building phase, focused on developing AI-enabled systems and tools internally, and said Dentsu Creative is now ready to “externalize” that work. Kaminkow pointed to a win with i-Health, led by Dentsu X with support from Dentsu Creative, as early evidence of tighter collaboration between media and creative.

“We are back on the up,” Gaughran said of Dentsu Creative.

The agency isn’t done making moves. Gaughran and Kaminkow indicated more senior hires are on the way, including creative talent.

“We feel like we still have opportunity to strengthen the team,” Kaminkow said.