WPP Prepares Major Strategy Review
WPP, the world's largest advertising holding company, is set to present a major strategy review today, February 26. The review is expected to address how its agencies, including Ogilvy, will restructure creative teams to integrate AI, data, and technology while focusing on "return on creativity."
- The strategy, dubbed 'Elevate28', is a response to significant financial pressure, including a 67% stock price drop over the past year and a fall from the FTSE 100 index. The plan aims to achieve £500 million in gross annual cost savings by 2028. - A central component of the overhaul involves restructuring the company's creative agencies—including Ogilvy, VML, and AKQA—under a single entity called WPP Creative. This move mirrors previous consolidations of its media and production units into WPP Media and WPP Production. - The review is one of the first major initiatives by CEO Cindy Rose, who took the helm in September 2025. To help shape the new plan, WPP has enlisted the consulting firm McKinsey & Company to "facilitate and stress-test" the new strategy. - AI is at the heart of the new strategy, with WPP aiming to become a "simpler, lower-cost, AI-enabled business." The company is investing significantly in its proprietary AI platform, WPP Open, which is already used by more than 30,000 employees to augment creative work and improve efficiency. - While former CEO Mark Read has stated that AI will "augment human creativity" rather than replace it, he has also acknowledged that AI-driven efficiencies mean "there will be fewer people involved" in doing the same work in the future. - The focus on "return on creativity" reflects a broader industry trend to more directly link creative outputs to measurable business results like Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). Industry research from Google suggests that creative quality is the driver for as much as 70% of a campaign's success.
