WPP is entering a new era.
The British ad giant’s new CEO, Cindy Rose, on Thursday unveiled a sweeping turnaround plan as the company grapples with cost-cutting clients, intensifying competition, and AI disruption.
Rose is taking a sledgehammer to WPP’s operating model and streamlining the company into four key units. The ad giant previously operated as a holding company, where an alphabet soup of different agencies — from creative to PR and production — largely worked in silos. WPP is also doubling down on AI and forming a new “enterprise solutions” division to help clients with their own AI transformations.
The company said it anticipates achieving cost savings of £500 million, about $676 million, by 2028 as part of the strategy. The market did not react favorably to the plan. WPP shares slid more than 6% in early London trading on Thursday.
Rose, who took the helm of the ad giant in September, and WPP’s chief financial officer, Joanne Wilson, held a call with reporters on Thursday morning about their “Elevate28” strategy. Here are the key takeaways, and what the reset means for WPP’s 98,000 staffers.
1. The brutal financials require cost-cutting, which could mean layoffs
Rose acknowledged on the call that the financials aren’t pretty. “Our performance is not where it needs to be,” she said.
The company’s full-year revenue for 2025 fell 10.4% to £10.1 billion, around $13.7 billion, while its operating profit slumped more than 70% to £382 million, around $517 million. The company said it was hit by clients cutting back spending in sectors including tech, retail, and consumer goods. It was also impacted by large goodwill and property-related impairment charges.
WPP warned the bleeding is likely to continue until at least the back half of this year.
Rose did not provide specifics when asked how cuts might translate into layoffs.
She said the company has identified “multiple initiatives” to meet its $676 million cost-saving goal, including “eliminating some duplication in certain areas, org simplification, shared services in the finance and HR space,” alongside managing its real estate portfolio.
She emphasized that “most of these cost savings” would be reinvested into high-growth areas of the business, including talent.
2. Unification is the hottest trend in advertising
Under its former CEO, Martin Sorrell, WPP pioneered the advertising agency holding company model. That blueprint is unraveling across Madison Avenue, reflecting clients’ desire for a simpler offering.
WPP’s French rival, Publicis, unveiled its “power of one” structure a decade ago. The recent Omnicom-IPG mega-merger brought together a wide range of creative, PR, health, media, and production agencies under one umbrella.
Now it’s WPP’s turn. It’s simplifying its business into four divisions: WPP Media, WPP Creative, WPP Production, and WPP Enterprise Solutions.
The rationalization likely won’t be without pain. A former Publicis exec previously told Business Insider that some leaders were roiled when the French ad group went through a similar process. Some felt their power and responsibilities were diminished, and that their performance was less visible to senior leadership, the person said.
“It did get them to a better place,” said the former Publicis exec, in a 2023 interview. “But a lot of people ended up leaving.”
Rose acknowledged on Thursday’s call that times of change can be “anxiety-inducing” for staffers.
“I’m well aware of the risk of transformation fatigue,” Rose said. “Our plan is designed to get us to end of job, if you will, within the next 18 months. So we are not going to draw this out for any longer than that.”
3. Tired: Advertising. Wired: Consulting
The business of creating and placing ads has become commoditized and less lucrative over the years — a shift now accelerating in the age of AI, where logos and campaigns can be generated in seconds and deployed through automated platforms. Agencies have responded by pushing beyond their creative roots, expanding into areas like data, commerce, and digital transformation as they try to reinvent themselves as strategic advisors.
That’s the thinking behind WPP’s new enterprise solutions unit. It’s a play to lock in longer-term, management-consulting-style contracts, combining its capabilities in areas such as customer experience and technology integration. Right now, nearly every global business is trying to identify its AI strategy — and WPP wants to be on hand to help them figure it out.
“Our mission is now to be a trusted growth partner for our clients in the era of AI,” Rose said on Thursday’s call.
Love it or loathe it, WPP staffers are expected to embrace AI, too. Rose said the company is bringing WPP Open, its agentic marketing platform, “in every single client pitch.”
Going head-to-head with consulting giants won’t be easy. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matthew Bloxham wrote in a Thursday research note that while WPP’s generative-AI offerings “look impressive,” they only mirror similar industry-wide initiatives.
“WPP’s new Elevate28 strategy doesn’t go far enough to deliver the course correction required to address concerns about the existential threat from AI to the global advertising agency’s business model,” Bloxham wrote.
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