Sectors: Creative, Media & Technology

WPP’s annus horribilis is ending with another blow – it’s been relegated from the FTSE 100. Green Square’s Barry Dudley draws an unlikely parallel to the comeback story of M&S that might give CEO Cindy Rose hope that it can make a return. You have probably already heard about the staggering drop in WPP’s stock market value, but just in case, a mere eight years ago it stood at £24bn. It now languishes at around £3.2bn. In 2025 alone the share price has dropped over 60%. And now there has been a rather symbolic moment to add insult to injury, as WPP has been relegated from the FTSE 100. Replaced by British Land, in case you wondered. Is this the end of an era? Surely there is no way back? Or is there… Not long ago, M&S was shorthand for a tired British institution: overexposed to shrinking high streets, lagging behind in digital, confused about its customer, and carrying a bloated estate that looked increasingly like a museum to a bygone model of retail. By 2019, years of sliding clothing sales, the slow erosion of its once‑dominant food halo and a late move into e‑commerce culminated in stock market humiliation: it dropped out of the FTSE 100 for the first time since the index began in 1984. The numbers told a simple story. Profit warnings had undermined City confidence. Online pure‑plays were winning baskets; fast fashion was winning wardrobes. The brand that once defined the middle of Britain’s high street no longer seemed to know who it was for. When the pandemic hit, it accelerated trends that were already in motion: fewer shoppers in town centres, burgeoning baskets online, greater expectations of convenience, price transparency and purpose. The reinvention of M&S did not begin with a big‑bang campaign, but with a very un‑romantic admission: the model was broken. Under CEO’s Steve Rowe and later Stuart Machin, the company embarked on a wide‑ranging reset that looked, from the outside, more like a private‑equity playbook than a traditional plc tidy‑up. Hundreds of legacy high street stores were either closed, relocated or reshaped into food‑led formats. Capital was reallocated into retail parks of the future and mixed‑use locations that actually matched modern shopping patterns. At the same time, M&S finally committed to digital. Clothing and home were overhauled online: navigation simplified, imagery upgraded, returns made smoother, and the ranges sharpened with fewer, better options. Data started to drive decisions on ranging and markdowns rather than merchandisers’ instinct. Its Sparks loyalty scheme was rebuilt into a data engine that could power personalised offers and smarter media planning, rather than being based around a dusty plastic card at the bottom of a purse. The brand proposition itself was narrowed and made sharper. In clothing, M&S stopped trying to be everything to everyone and doubled down on being the dependable, good‑quality, fashion‑aware choice for a clearly defined broad middle. In food, it leaned harder into distinctiveness and quality at accessible treat prices. A mixture of external agencies and in-house capabilities were used over this period, but one constant was WPP’s very own Mindshare. By 2023, the impact was visible in the financial performance and in perception data. Profits and market share moved in the right direction, clothing was no longer the Achilles’ heel, and food remained a fortress. When M&S was readmitted to the FTSE 100 it signalled that a legacy British brand, written off by many, had managed to re‑wire its economics and identity at the same time – and persuade investors that its best days were not necessarily behind it. For Cindy Rose at WPP, looking up from a very different set of spreadsheets, this M&S chapter perhaps offers a useful, if imperfect mirror. WPP’s relegation from the FTSE 100 crystallises a fear that the old holding company model – built for a world of 30‑second TV spots and annual media deals – has been left behind by platforms, consultancies and AI‑native specialists. Like M&S in 2019, WPP is grappling with structural, not merely cyclical, change. It faces client budget pressure, insourcing of certain capabilities, the gravitational pull of the big platforms, and a bruising few years of profit warnings and downgrades. Under previous leadership it has made steps to simplify its structure and lean into data and technology, but the story has not yet convinced the market. Rose, arriving with a background steeped in technology and platforms, inherits not just a market value and perception to fix, but a story to rewrite. The M&S playbook does not transfer neatly, but there are perhaps some themes. The first is radical portfolio honesty. Just as M&S took a scalpel to the long tail of under‑performing stores, WPP may need to look again at where it is structurally advantaged and where it is not – across agencies, geographies, and capabilities. That will almost certainly mean further consolidation, exits from low‑margin activities, and heavier bets on areas where clients will still pay a premium: true brand strategy, creative that travels culture, high‑end production, complex integrated media, and business‑changing experience design. The second is to treat data and AI less as tools and more as the operating spine. M&S did not simply declare itself omnichannel; it rebuilt its digital offer and loyalty infrastructure so that promises could be delivered in real time. For WPP, that logic translates into an integrated, group‑wide data and AI infrastructure that runs through creative, media and commerce, rather than separate agencies reinventing the wheel. That might include things such as common measurement frameworks, responsibly governed first‑party data partnerships, and a clear strategy around AI that actually improves margins and work quality. A third parallel is around focus and proposition. M&S found its footing again when it stopped apologising for being M&S and doubled down on a distinct, middle‑Britain promise. WPP has an opportunity to stop acting like a fragmented federation and state more clearly what a WPP client should experience that is difficult to replicate elsewhere. Does a WPP engagement feel meaningfully different – faster, more joined‑up, more accountable – versus stitching together a platform, a consulting firm and a production shop? There is also a cultural lesson. M&S’s turnaround was as much about shifting internal mindsets as swapping out signage. Store managers had to be empowered to act on data, buyers to look beyond gut instinct, and central teams to move faster. WPP, spanning tens of thousands of people, will need its own version: incentives that reward collaboration and client outcomes, not only individual agency P&Ls; talent strategies that attract AI‑native creatives and engineers; and an internal narrative that makes the new WPP feel like a place where careers in the future of advertising are built, not where they go to wind down. Finally, there are the questions of time and storytelling. M&S did not pivot in a single year, it learnt to narrate progress convincingly to customers and investors, using proof along the way – store openings that felt new, digital metrics that improved, ranges that sold out for the right reasons. Rose will need to do something similar for WPP: set out a small number of clear, measurable commitments on growth, margin, simplification and client satisfaction, and then report against them in a language that resonates. Can the big holding company operating model evolve as convincingly as a high‑street retail stalwart that once seemed past saving? Will Rose be afforded the time to go on such a journey? Or will Dawn French’s M&S fairy have to lend her wand to the WPP Board? Read more

After weeks on a listening tour, Cindy Rose met investors for the first time as CEO with a stinging set of Q3 results, but also a notably steady hand. Greensquare’s Barry Dudley says her delivery signals a new kind of leadership at WPP. But will that be enough? Just two months into her tenure, WPP chief executive Cindy Rose made her first address to the public markets this week, unveiling Q3 trading results alongside chief financial officer Joanne Wilson. They made for pretty grim reading. The snapshot: reported net sales down 11.1%, like-for-like net sales down 5.9%, guidance for the full year revised downwards to a 5.5%-6% decline in like-for-like net sales (versus the 0%-2% decline that was predicted at the start of the year) and a share price down a thumping 16% by Thursday’s close. Operating margin guidance for the year is ‘around 13%’, which is some way short of Publicis, which is hoping to be slightly over 18%. Sam Anderson has more analysis and a great summary of Rose’s four-point turnaround plan. The outlook is not good. But… there was that breath of fresh air and a genuine, infectious steeliness from both Rose and Wilson that means I am going to be watching their progress with enthusiasm and hope. Why, I hear you ask? The first thing that struck me was the candor in Rose’s opening remarks, acknowledging the performance was “not acceptable” and “weaker than expected”. That’s a pretty standard starting point for an incoming CEO: front everything that’s not great, map out the further pain that’s still to come, so that there are clearer decks for what you then hope to deliver in the future. But I got the sense that there was genuine enthusiasm for grappling with all of this. Publicis has clearly got a lot of things right – The Power of One, how it has embraced data, tech and AI to name a few – but I believe this has all been turbocharged by the gusto and confidence of its irrepressible chairman and CEO, Arthur Sadoun. There’s an intangible value that this kind of leadership adds to a business that I think Rose is going to bring. Next was demonstrating speed of action. Rose said, “We haven’t gone far enough, quickly enough.” There’s a painful cost-cutting side to this that I’m sure is being accelerated as I type, but there are also future-facing moves such as the launch of self-service offering WPP Open Pro. This felt like a very bold, but highly risky move when I first heard the news. My natural assumption was that Open Pro would surely cannibalize existing revenues. The rationale, as Rose explained, is in fact to seek incremental revenues: “This is a strategic move to expand our addressable market and serve the long tail of smaller companies and emerging brands who may not be in the market for the sort of full-service offer that we typically provide to large multinational clients. Open Pro clients can choose to self-serve for some aspects of the marketing workflow and then complement this with a range of managed services from WPP.” Time will tell if this was a smart move, but it was rapid action by someone with a deep tech background, where moving fast and breaking things is still a valid strategy. Doing their homework and research was the next thing that struck me. Rose will have spoken to all manner of senior people within WPP and sought their views and opinions, but the most important conversations will have been with clients. She spoke first to the clients who had chosen to leave WPP and then to the existing clients. And the key conclusion from both camps? They “want the answer to be simpler and more integrated.” WPP has been on the journey towards this for a while now, but perhaps the actions to make this happen will now go up another few gears. ‘Powered by One’ – how about that for a phrase to build around? Bet no one else has anything like that… The second homework learning was client servicing. Rose referenced “service delivery excellence” and “world-class client experience,” which can only come from a “high-performance culture”. She talked passionately about the role of talent in the future and wanting to attract the best there is. Data, tech and AI may all be fundamentals now, but Rose gets that the good old humans are critical too. And what of AI? This week, Microsoft announced that it has invested $35bn in AI in Q3 alone, which is around 8x WPP’s revenues for the quarter. Meta’s capital expenditures for 2025 are now forecast to be between $70bn and $72bn. Astonishing. I think Rose is taking a smart position here, too. Continue to build WPP Open, test and evolve WPP Open Pro, but do these in collaboration and partnership with the tech giants – not in competition with them. Finally, to a criticism, or perhaps I should say to a piece of constructive feedback. Earnings webcasts have a set format and need to convey complex things in a very short space of time in a functional, clear manner. Rose and Wilson did that compellingly, confidently and passionately – not that I’m anyone, but I was impressed. But what really bugged me was the sound quality, which at times was like a lockdown podcast recorded in a bedroom, with Rose sometimes sounding like she was in the next bedroom. It may be a functional thing, but it should still be a premium production that elevates and enhances. I know some people who could help… The Virgoan rant done, I’m looking forward to the WPP rollercoaster that lies ahead… Read more

Green Square’s Nick Berry explores a creative production sector at a crossroads: legacy giants collapsing under their own weight while independents surge ahead. The question now is whether a new wave of VFX and production talent can seize the moment and redefine the industry’s future. Soon after Technicolor collapsed earlier this year, I wrote in The Drum about the potential fallout and the opportunity for a new wave of creative production companies to reimagine the future and fill the void. Six months on, and with the Ciclope Festival taking place in Berlin next week to celebrate craft and creativity across the visual arts, I thought it would be timely to look at the creative production and VFX industry and assess how things are shaping up. Soon after Technicolor closed its doors, Jellyfish Pictures met the same fate, and more recently another longstanding player, Glassworks VFX, also reached the end of the road. On the face of things, this paints a bleak picture for the industry. For Technicolor, servicing its huge debt was a massive challenge, but legacy players that have struggled have common traits, including costly physical technology, infrastructure and teams. This has clearly taken its toll on top of the undeniable impact of Covid, the writers’ strikes and so on. Pressure was also building from smaller, more nimble creative production houses, with lower costs and the ability to scale as required, with the cloud removing traditional capital-intensive barriers to entry. Outsourcing to cheaper locations has also helped the development of skills and capabilities globally, leading to more competition from shops with growing reputations in India and the Far East, as well as South America. With mega-mergers and consolidation within large network groups taking place within the ad industry, a lot has been made recently about the opportunity for independent agencies to flourish. This similarly applies to the creative production sector, where the unrelenting appetite for marketing and entertainment content shows no sign of diminishing. So, there is an exciting and fertile environment for ‘new kids on the block’ to thrive. The nature of the visual arts industry means that new, young talent will always push the boundaries, and if you balance this with experience to navigate briefs, budgets and manage client expectations, you can create an exciting winning formula. This mix of raw talent and experience is evident across the industry, with many independent creative production and VFX houses making hay on the back of technical capability, and agility, as well as creative fearlessness. And compared with a decade ago, it is now commonplace for creative production companies to work directly with brands alongside or instead of ad agencies. This is a sign of confidence in their capability and improved standing in the pecking order. As the new generation of creative production companies becomes the establishment, what can they learn from the legacy players that have fallen by the wayside? Jamie Smith, a partner at Sheridans, a leading media law firm, was general counsel at The Mill from 2012 to 2018, the period that spanned the acquisition by Technicolor. Jamie notes: “The biggest change when The Mill became part of Technicolor was that decision-making became centralized. It remained highly successful, but it was now a large machine. In my view, over time, this slowed the decision-making process and localized teams felt less empowered. “With this, the ability to recognize and reward talent diminished, which to me is the biggest issue with creative, talent-based businesses. You rely on talent, and if not careful, you can start to erode your competitive edge and become open to attack from those who can be more flexible.” To succeed in the current climate, Jamie thinks, “Studio leadership teams need to take strategic decisions looking at the next 12-24 months. Get ahead of technology and always ensure efficiency goes hand in hand with creativity. “I still see studios looking at the short term and not beyond. It’s great if your sales pipeline is strong, but not so good if there is an over-reliance on a client or niche type of work. “You need to be bold with hiring and firing. In its prime, The Mill was good at spotting and nurturing talent as well as making changes if it didn’t work. This not only makes people feel they belong to a great studio, but also that the people they are with are the best of the best.” As with all industries, the threat versus opportunity of AI is a major factor in how the future of creative production will play out. Certain aspects of production will inevitably be replaced, or enhanced and sped up, but this has always been the case in this incredibly dynamic and fast-moving industry. VFX tools have developed exponentially over the decades, and the question of how technology is used to advance creativity is not new. To emphasize this point, in a 1971 interview about the role of synthesizers and technology in their music, Pink Floyd said: “We couldn’t do what we do, as we do it, without it… Things are down to how you control them, and whether you are controlling them, and not the other way around… It’s about using the tools available, when they are available. “It’s like saying, give a man a Les Paul guitar and he becomes Eric Clapton… It’s not true… and give a man an amplifier and a synthesizer, he doesn’t become us.” This is a great mantra for the visual arts industry today, and it gives us reason to be excited and embrace the creative potential that further technological advances will present. As I noted a few months ago, there are lots of exciting creative production and VFX specialists gaining a reputation, some of whom are rising from the ashes of Technicolor, including… Arc Creative, which was formed as The Mill was sinking in the US. This new VFX shop was launched by some of The Mill’s US senior leadership in partnership with Dream Machine FX group. It’s been reported over 100 former Mill workers are now employed by Arc. In April, The Heist, a Thinkingbox company, hired key leaders from The Mill US and 30+ former Mill staffers and opened a new office in Chicago. Thinkingbox has also recently announced the launch of a London office led by former senior staff from The Mill UK and France. Folks, a Pitch Black company, also expanded and opened a studio in London and hired former Technicolor CEO Christian Roberton to lead its UK division, in April 2025. Stray was established in 2024 by former senior leaders from The Mill London, including Misha Stanford-Harris, who had been both MD and VP of Global Production before founding Stray. I caught up with Misha recently to discuss what the future holds for the industry and the factors that will underpin success moving forward. Misha says: “The VFX industry has gone through a recalibration. The technology environment allows startups to compete with larger legacy companies on a more even playing field. This has allowed their creative talent to shine and show their true value to the creative process. “The future is bright for companies that can harness technology with real creative talent driving the narrative. It goes without saying that you need to be nimble and able to pivot, as well as deliver great work! “The key is to offer something unique, and ensure creative collaboration with clients, so that you are integral to the process, not just a service.” In sum, resilience and innovation are fundamental to the visual arts industry, and I believe the future remains hugely positive and exciting. Following a turbulent few months, a celebration of creative excellence at Ciclope next week is important and timely to instill confidence across the industry and remind people of the joy and wonder generated by creative production companies to engage and delight customers and audiences alike. Read more

Barry Dudley examines whether the launch of Horizon Global – a joint venture between Havas and Horizon Media Holdings, bringing together $20bn in combined billings and billed as the first AI-era agency network – is a genuine game-changer for media agencies or just glossy boardroom spin. Horizon Global is to be a new entity focused specifically on “US-centric global client opportunities,” allowing both parent entities to maintain their independence. The profits are split, leadership is shared between New York and Paris, and there is to be a combined tech offer that merges Horizon’s Blu platform with Havas’s Converged.AI to create BluConverged. The timing isn’t coincidental. With Omnicom’s pending acquisition of IPG creating a behemoth with billings reportedly north of $70bn, rumors swirling around Dentsu’s potential sale of its international operations, and WPP with a new CEO, the big holdco landscape is experiencing unprecedented change. Horizon Global is hoping to emerge as an alternative for global marketers who suddenly find their agency options dramatically reduced. Bob Lord, Horizon’s president who now also serves as interim CEO of the joint venture, puts it simply: “There is a lack of client choice out in the marketplace.”

Why this could be genius

The strategic logic behind Horizon Global is compelling on multiple fronts. First, it addresses a fundamental geographic imbalance that has long plagued both agencies. Horizon brings formidable US muscle to Havas, while Havas contributes strong European presence, particularly in France and Spain, to Horizon. Then there is speed to market. Interested clients can pick up the phone and enquire – it exists now. Unlike a full merger, which inevitably involves integration headaches and cultural clashes, Horizon Global will become its own thing while allowing the parent businesses to maintain their existing operations just the way they are. It’s collaboration without the pain of full integration. By contrast, the Omnicom-IPG deal was announced last December and only received FTC approval a few days ago, and even then, it was subject to conditions around commitment to political neutrality. If they get it right, the BluConverged platform will combine years of R&D investment by Havas and Horizon with access to a significantly bigger and deeper data pool. Perhaps most importantly, the timing of all of this capitalizes on market uncertainty. If you were a client who is thinking of pitching their global media business, would you add another network to the list when there aren’t that many candidates to put on the list in the first place? I suspect they might.

The challenges ahead

While Havas and Horizon have $20bn in combined billings, a significant portion will remain in those businesses. As mentioned above, the joint venture is aiming for “US-centric global client opportunities,” so is it clientless until the first of those ‘opportunities’ is converted? And even with the clout and influence of the parents’ $20bn, this is still somewhat dwarfed by the billings of WPP, Publicis and the soon-to-be-combined Omnicom-IPG. Then there is the scale challenge of servicing truly global clients. Although Horizon Global can claim a footprint of over 100 countries, the depth and quality of that coverage inevitably varies significantly from market to market. And while a joint venture may be quicker to make happen than a merger, it is not without its own operational complexities and ongoing challenges. It must navigate the inherent tensions of having two parent companies, with different cultures, strategic priorities and ways of working. The leadership team, split between New York and Paris, will need to maintain constant alignment while managing potentially competing interests. Interim CEO Bob Lord and global COO Renata Spackova both still have their existing day jobs to attend to at Horizon and Havas, respectively.

A missed opportunity

As someone who witnessed first-hand the power of an agency name during my time with a business called Naked, I do wonder if a trick has been missed here. Undoubtedly, there are many factors that make the likes of Mischief, Rethink, Uncommon and Special such unique and successful businesses, but I’ll bet that the name and the ethos that sits behind each of them will have often been a distinguishing pitch-winning factor, overtly or subliminally. But Horizon Global… BluConverged… What’s my suggestion, you ask? ‘The Other One.’ Where client relationships are everything and execution is paramount, even the most elegant partnership structures can crumble if they can’t deliver superior outcomes. Without this, the masterstroke soon becomes a mirage. But one thing is certain: the big media agency landscape just became a little more interesting. Read more