US market and artistic businesses weigh on WPP

WPP has confirmed its disappointing natural progress numbers in 2023 of 0.9% for the yr and simply 0.3% in This fall. Media did greatest with Group[M growing 4.9% for the year (Q4 5.7%) with creative and other agencies going into retreat (-1.6% for the year, -3.4% in Q4.)

It’s now pretty clear why CEO Mark Read (above) decided to merge most of his creative agencies into VML at the end of last year with just Ogilvy and AKQA staying outside.

The US is the biggest area of concern with Q4 organic revenue down 4.5% (up 3.1% outside the US.) Read blamed this on tech clients, who had accounted for a big proportion of WPP’s revenue, cutting back.

Read says: “At our recent Capital Markets Day we detailed our strategy to capture the opportunities of AI, data and technology, while harnessing the full power of our offer to clients, building world-class agency brands, and driving strong financial returns through efficient execution.

“AI will be fundamental for our business and we are embracing the opportunities that it presents, putting it at the heart of our operations and our work for clients. Our AI-powered platform, WPP Open, is now being used by more than 30,000 people across WPP with growing adoption by our clients.

“While 2023 was more challenging than we expected due to cuts in spending by technology clients, we delivered a resilient performance for the year with 0.9% like-for-like growth and a 0.2 point improvement in our headline operating margin at constant currency. This was driven by disciplined cost control, while continuing to invest in AI, data and technology.”

WPP is forecasting another year of 0.9% growth so recovery is still some away. This seems a modest excpectation and Read will be hoping for rather better. Main rivals Publicis and Ommicom are forecasting about 5%.