Source: The Drum
The boss of WPP has pledged to accelerate the “simplification” of its structure after the world’s largest marcomms group reported a 0.9% fall in 2017 net sales and a 0.3% drop in annual revenues.
Sir Martin Sorrell said 2017 “was not a pretty year” for the company and cited the impact of technological disruption and the emergence of zero-based budgeters among the factors for its sluggish performance.
WPP has forecast no growth for 2018 and will now “escalate” the programme of internal consolidation that has already seen several of its most prominent media and marketing agencies merge as it seeks to put a simpler proposition to clients.
Sorell commented that „in this environment, the most successful agency groups will be those who offer simplicity and flexibility of structure to deliver efficient, effective solutions – and therefore growth – for their clients. With this in mind, we are now accelerating the implementation of our strategy for the group.”
The reorganisation of WPP’s myriad brands began in earnest last year as the company combined its media agencies Maxus and MEC into Wavemaker, merged five of its design consultancies into Superunion and folded digital shop Possible into stablemate Wunderman.
This week WPP also revealed that it would be merging its PR firms Burson-Marsteller and Cohn & Wolfe to create Burson Cohn & Wolfe.
“These are all examples of simplifying our offer more effectively,” the company said in its preliminary results statement. “This escalation will continue as we continue to work with clients on developing the ‘agency of the future’ and who, at the same time, demand faster, better, cheaper.”
