WPP Chief Mark Read on New Business, PR and Why More Dollars Will Flow to Google, Facebook

Chief executive of WPP Mark Read has highlighted the growth in demand for PR services and spoken confidently about new business prospects as the company recorded like-for-like revenue growth of 15.7% for the third quarter of $3.6 billion (2.6 billion pounds). It also revealed reported revenue growth of 14.7% at $4.5 billion (3.2 billion pounds). Compared to 2019’s pre-pandemic performance, this proved to be “a strong performance” for the world's largest advertising holding company, said Mark Read, unveiling growth of 6.9% compared with two years ago. Its top-performing markets on an organic basis for the quarter were the U.S. (+12.4%), the U.K. (+16.9%), Germany (+34.5%) Greater China (+18.0%) and Australia (+2.4%) respectively. New business confidence The network also reported new business wins of $1.7 billion, bringing the new business total for the year-to-date to $4.6 billion, and leading Read to sound confident going into 2022, with the results of the Coca-Cola marketing and media pitch still to be decided, due within Q4. New contracts were also signed with clients such as Beiersdorf, L’Oréal, Sainsbury’s, LV, L’Oreal and TD Bank during the last three months. Speaking on an investor call just a day after Ogilvy London lost its long-standing creative account with British Airways to independent agency Uncommon Studio, Read was still upbeat on new business prospects to come, saying that he saw “more opportunities” than he did risk. If anything, it's going to drive more of their spend onto Facebook and Google, as it is harder for them to activate that data off those two platforms.Mark Read, chief executive of WPP “This was a particularly tough year … media clients tend to review on a three-or-four year basis. Unilever hadn't reviewed for seven years, we knew it was coming up this year,” he explained. “These things are competitive but going into the balance of this year, and next year, we probably have more opportunity than we've got risk.”Read also said, “coming out of COVID” that it was still important for clients to “look at who they want to work with” and consider their data and technology strengths in making that decision. “I would point out that we have more than 120 clients with more than $20 million of revenue. We've got substantial, big clients with whom we can expand our relationships, so there's a tremendous amount of organic growth opportunity.” A growth in demand for PR Read cited societal reasons for the growth in demand for the public relations services, which combined saw year-on-year organic growth of 16% and growth of 12.6% compared with 2019, which was accelerating the growth of its communications agencies H+K and BCW. “In previous times, public relations has often been the first part of our business to be cut. That wasn't the case, during COVID. But scope in their services has continued to increase,” he explained. “If you read the newspapers, frankly, it shouldn't be any surprise with topics of purpose, reputation, employee activism, political, polarisation and racial challenges—people's issues that companies are increasingly expected to wrestle with, and have a point of view on. And I think that, as a result, there's been a lot of demand from clients for guidance and counsel and programs for.” Mark Read Talks About How WPP Shifted During Covid Due to the strong demand for communications services, which he cited as due to factors relating to the pandemic and other societal issues, Read highlighted the merger of Finsbury Glover Hering and SVC as a significant element of “strategic progress,” while the acquisition of specialist AI firm Satalia was also announced during the quarter. More power to Facebook and Google Another area of major change impacting advertisers is the death of the third party cookie and Apple closing off access to its own data, meaning that the industry’s walled gardens are only likely to get larger while companies seek first-party client relationships. This, he said, will likely only drive more demand towards Google and Facebook, which will continue to have direct access to consumers as privacy standards strengthen. “Apple really cuts across those platforms’ ability to link their data out into the outside world," he said. "So you have two businesses; Facebook and Google, which have really rich platforms but Apple has stopped them activating that data off those platforms. So ironically, it's going to have a dual effect where on a level it is going to be harder about what how do we collect data and how do we build our own set of data as a first-party data question. WPP, Snap Partner on Augmented Reality "If anything, it's going to drive more of their spend onto Facebook, and Google as it is harder for them to activate that data off of those two platforms. I don't think it's going to lead to spending moving away from them,” he explained.