Die Lehrbücher von Publicis und die Fehlerkollektionen von WPP | Meine Ansicht über die digitale Transformation von Werbeagenturen

Advertising agencies have always been skilled at packaging the future. Now they are themselves the "objects to be reshaped by the future."

In the global advertising industry in 2025, a market restructuring is taking place. The logic of industry expansion has split:

One option is to grow big and strong by gaining size through mergers and acquisitions. This expansion path follows the traditional growth strategy of advertising groups: size brings bargaining power and cost advantages. In 2015, major mergers and acquisitions accelerated further. Omnicom will acquire Interpublic for $13 billion and thus become the world's largest advertising group.

The other option is to be fast and precise and use technology to overtake turning points. One bets on technology and artificial intelligence to achieve efficiency and agility. The price of data assets and MarTech companies has reached a new high. The global MarTech market is expected to grow from approximately $459.6 billion in 2024 to $591.6 billion in 2025. The algorithms and platform models from Silicon Valley are replacing the creative stories of Madison Avenue.

Is it a race for size or for speed? This is a strategic decision that determines not only victory or defeat but also survival.

The French Publicis and the British WPP, the two European advertising giants, have each bet on the future and taken different paths.

01 The Same Starting Point for Change

A few days ago, all of them released their second - quarter reports.

Publicis has continued its solid and even "better - than - expected" performance of recent years: Net revenues in the second quarter amounted to €3.617 billion, representing a 4.6% increase compared to the previous year. Organic growth was 5.9%, a new high in recent years. The North American market grew by 5.3%, Europe by 4.6%, and Asia - Pacific by 5.7%. CEO Sadoun even rarely improved the full - year forecast during the investor conference call and raised the expectation for organic sales growth to nearly 5%.

It was not so good for WPP. Second - quarter sales fell by 5.5% to 6%, and the cumulative decline in the first half of the year was over 4%. The full - year forecast had to be lowered to negative growth of 3% to 5%. This was already the second profit warning. The capital market reacted immediately, and the shares fell by nearly 18% that day, a new low since 2009.

Of course, there is the background of macro - economic weakness. But when one sees that core customers like Coca - Cola and Pfizer are gradually being taken away by the competition and that the market share in North America has declined for several consecutive quarters, WPP cannot shift all the problems onto the circumstances.

On the one hand, there is Sadoun, who constantly improves the forecast during the revenue session, and on the other hand, Mark Read, who chooses his words carefully during the conference call.

It is actually quite interesting. Sadoun joined the Publicis Group in 2017, and Read started at WPP in 2018. Both are successors of superiors who have worked in the two companies for over 30 years respectively, and both are CEOs who have taken on the task of transformation during a crisis.

One can say that Publicis and WPP were almost at the same starting point for change.

After six or seven years, the two have moved in different directions: WPP seems to be "torn" between debt reduction, market integration, and the attempt with artificial intelligence; Publicis, on the other hand, has strongly invested in technology and data and developed a growing curve as a platform company.

If one were to give a title to this section of industry history, it could be: The Textbook of Publicis, the Error Log of WPP.

The first chapter of this "textbook" dates back to 2014, which might have been the starting point of Publicis' rise.

02 From the $3.7 - Billion Deal in 2014

In 2014, Publicis acquired the American digital consulting firm Sapient for $3.7 billion. This deal shook up the entire advertising industry at that time.

The reason is simple: On the one hand, this price was almost one - third of Publicis' then - market value, which was a typical high - risk race; on the other hand, Sapient was not a traditional advertising agency but a consulting firm specialized in technology and digital transformation, with a business scope covering IT architecture, data platforms, and user experience design.

For the advertising holding companies at that time, this was almost "jumping out of the comfort zone." The prevailing view in the industry was that advertising agencies should either strengthen their creativity or improve their bargaining power in media procurement, rather than regarding SAP systems and API interfaces as future growth points.

Moreover, the advertising industry was still in the "Integrated Marketing" stage at that time. Of course, digitalization was also considered important, but the focus was more on technologies such as DSP, RTB, and the automation of social advertising placements. The interest was in how to reach users more efficiently and precisely.

In comparison, the implementation of SAP and the establishment of corporate API platforms are more internal matters that require consulting and implementation capabilities, including architecture design, system integration, process re - engineering, security compliance, etc. This is not a typical area of expertise for advertising agencies.

Publicis' management at that time believed that the value of creativity and media services was declining. If advertising cannot be integrated into the core processes of companies, it will remain on the periphery. If one cannot play an indispensable role in the future digital transformation of customers, one has to engage in "price competition" in the marketing chain.

In the past, advertising groups usually worked at the end of the "marketing chain." Sapient brought Publicis into contact with customers' ERP and CRM systems for the first time and even participated in the overall channel strategy planning of companies.

This position has given Publicis more influence in the customers' organizations and also secured a larger share of the budget allocation for it - not only depending on the CMO but also having access to the CIO, CTO, and even the CEO.

As a result, Publicis' competitive boundary is no longer limited to advertising groups like Omnicom and WPP but now stands against consulting giants like Accenture and Deloitte.

In the year after the acquisition of Sapient, i.e., 2015, Publicis proposed the concept of "Power of One" on Sadoun's initiative, the core of which is to break the traditional matrix and put the customer at the center of services to promote overall cooperation.

In retrospect, the greatest value of this deal might be that Publicis completed the cognitive transformation six years earlier than others: Advertising should go beyond "creativity" and become part of "corporate growth." This laid the foundation for the subsequent acquisition of Epsilon, the investment in artificial intelligence, and the establishment of the e - commerce ecosystem.

In comparison, WPP's strategy at that time was more of a "conservative repair."

After 2014, WPP continued to promote the optimization of traditional research businesses like Kantar and focused on "simplifying the agency structure and improving profitability." Mark Read has actually made efforts in technological investment after taking office, but mainly through internal development and small acquisitions, without building an asset like Sapient in terms of size and degree of integration.

The result was that when the industry reached the turning point from "creativity - driven" to "technology - driven," Publicis bet on the future, while WPP tinkered with the past. This difference in rhythm has finally turned into a structural gap.

03 The Decisive Leap: The Acquisition of Epsilon for $4.4 Billion and the Bet on First - Party Data

If Sapient got Publicis on the digital transformation track, then Epsilon built a real protective wall for it in the field of data marketing.

In 2019, Publicis acquired Epsilon for $4.4 billion. This deal was remarkable not only because of the high amount (more than 35% of Publicis' then - market value) but also because it bets on "First - Party Data," an apparently dry but potentially vital area for the future of advertising.

Why has First - Party Data become so important? The answer is simple: The foundation on which the advertising industry is based is collapsing.

For twenty years, we have been tracking users with third - party cookies, reconstructing their behavior paths, and placing advertisements more and more precisely. But now, data protection laws such as GDPR and CCPA are becoming stricter, and Google has also announced that it will finally abolish cookies. The logic on which programmatic advertising is based is fundamentally changing.

The problem is that precision marketing does not disappear because of regulation. Brands still need to know: Who are my users? Where are they? How should I spend my money? In the past, one could ask these questions to the platform because the platform tracked users' behavior with cookies. But today, advertising platforms are closing the gates, and the only way for brands to take control is through First - Party Data.

This is fundamentally different from third - party data. They are not "borrowed" from the platform but collected by the brand itself, such as registration information, transaction records, membership bonuses, and interaction habits. They have three natural properties: legality, stability, and irreplaceability. They are legal because users consent; stable because they do not depend on third - parties; and most importantly, they enable brands to build their own consumer relationships instead of being completely dependent on the platform ecosystem.

For advertising holding companies, without First - Party Data, even the most creative content generated by artificial intelligence cannot find suitable users; and without a unified ID across all channels, it is difficult to allocate the brands' marketing investments.

At that time, advertising agencies will always remain on the periphery of creativity and media, and these two business areas are exactly the ones that can be most easily price - cut and most easily replaced by artificial intelligence. Whether an advertising agency can manage and activate the customers' First - Party Data determines whether it still stands at the core of the marketing chain.

Epsilon is exactly the "hard nut" of this era: It has a huge First - Party data asset and has CRM data of approximately 900 million consumers, covering consumer behavior, transaction habits, and loyalty systems. This means that Publicis can offer customers "brand - owned + security - compliant" data application solutions without being overly dependent on Google and Meta.

After the acquisition of Epsilon, Publicis' business field has completely changed.

After the acquisition was completed, Publicis quickly integrated Epsilon's data capabilities into the "Power of One" system and internally introduced the "Marcel Data Studio" - a real - time data analysis platform for customers.