Martin Sorrell Denies All Misconduct Allegations in Contentious Cannes Debate: 'It's Not True'

Author Ken Auletta also defended the ad industry

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CANNES, France—NDAs aside, Martin Sorrell wants to state, for the record, that none of the allegations raised against him in recent months are true.

The former WPP CEO made this point in several different ways during a Cannes Lions Festival main stage “debate” with Ken Auletta that was ostensibly a conversation about the latter’s bestselling book, Frenemies.

Most of the sprawling, hour-long tête-à-tête touched on the same topics Sorrell addressed in the previous day’s interview at a nearby Irish pub: digital platforms, media consolidation and the conflict between customer privacy concerns and advertising’s reliance on data.

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