WPP centralises commerce
- WPP merged its commerce expertise into a single unit called WPP Commerce as part of a two-year turnaround plan. - The reorganisation centralises commerce, retail and shoppable capabilities across the holding company. - Adweek frames this as a strategic shift toward integrated commerce-led content that blends conversion and awareness goals (adweek.com).
WPP has folded its scattered commerce teams into one global unit, WPP Commerce, as the advertising group pushes a broader overhaul under Chief Executive Cindy Rose. (adtechtoday.com) The new unit pulls together commerce work that had been spread across agencies and business divisions, and it will cover media, creative, enterprise solutions and production. WPP named Brent Taylor, previously chief executive of retail marketing agency Barrows, to run it as global chief executive. (storyboard18.com) WPP Commerce is being set up to handle ecommerce strategy, retail media, marketplace operations and shopper marketing through one structure instead of multiple agency handoffs. Trade coverage tied the move to Adweek’s report that WPP wants a more unified commerce offer for clients. (marketing-interactive.com) The reorganization lands less than two months after WPP outlined Elevate28, Rose’s multiyear turnaround plan, on February 26, 2026. That plan reorganized the company around four operating units: WPP Media, WPP Creative, WPP Production and WPP Enterprise Solutions. (wpp.com) Rose’s plan also set a target of about £500 million in annual savings by 2028 and said WPP would aim to stabilize performance in 2026, return to organic growth in 2027 and build sustained growth by 2028. Reuters reported at the time that WPP had posted a 5.4% drop in like-for-like net sales in 2025. (wpp.com) (rte.ie) Commerce has become a pressure point for agency groups because brands now want one partner that can connect advertising, retail media, marketplace listings and point-of-sale execution. WPP’s new unit is designed to give clients one route into those services instead of navigating separate agency silos. (adtechtoday.com) (storyboard18.com) That shift also fits Rose’s larger argument that WPP’s old holding-company structure had become too fragmented for clients that want integrated work across creative, media, data and technology. Reuters said WPP had struggled to connect its many agencies and specialist units into a simpler offer. (rte.ie) WPP is not eliminating commerce work so much as changing who controls it. The bet is that centralizing those capabilities under Taylor will make it easier to sell commerce as one product inside a company that is already collapsing other operations into fewer units. (storyboard18.com) (wpp.com) For WPP, the immediate test is not the name change but whether a single commerce unit helps reverse the weak 2025 numbers and supports the 2027 growth target Rose set in February. (rte.ie) (wpp.com)
