Advertising still makes plenty of money, shut up! Also, BBDO plans to promote more women on the creative side.
Everyone can finally stop worrying about outdated business models and proving that they are the best at helping brands communicate to teenz, because today our holding company friends told the world that they made more than expected in the first three months of 2016. The reason Omnicom and Publicis both had pretty decent quarters? America…along with the fact that businesses still have to pay for advertising but aren’t always so good at making the ads themselves.
“Paris-based Publicis’s shares have risen about 28 percent in the past three months, while those of Omnicom have gained 23 percent. Shares of market leader WPP, which gets a third of its revenue from North America, have increased 16 percent.”
Another big boost on the Publicis side came from Sapient, and Maurice Levy promised to “complete a reorganization by the summer that would have a positive impact from next year” and will most definitely involve making some more downsizing moves.
But back to our headline. During today’s earnings call, Omnicom CEO Jon Wren promised to double the number of women in creative leadership positions at BBDO over the next 12 months and to force directors to retire already when they reach the age of 75. From his statements:
“A critical aspect of achieving our talent development goals is creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. That means diversity in backgrounds, race, gender, age and experience. Quite frankly, we need to look more like the businesses, people and consumers we do business with. Omnicom’s commitment to diversity starts from the top.”
The fact that he got so specific with it is unusual and encouraging, and the deadline for this particular goal will arrive much sooner than TBWA’s 20% by 2020 milestone.
On the flip side, WPP has yet to discuss its earnings, but Sir Martin Sorrell did talk about his own. Yesterday, he told a bunch of British journalists at Advertising Week:
“I’m not a Johnny come lately who picked a company up and turned it round… Over those 31 years … I have taken a significant degree of risk. [WPP] is where my wealth is. It is long effort over a long period of time.”
He also said that he doesn’t like the word “pay” since it’s all so dependent on the performance of his company’s companies. Interestingly, The Drum reports that he called the Havas method of consolidation “the most fascinating thing going on in our industry at the moment,” adding that it’s pretty cool for Yannick and Vincent Bolloré to try and own everything in the Berlusconi style despite “all sorts of potential for conflict of interest.”
See, success is not so difficult!