WPP is not in a good place. If pressed, even the world’s biggest advertising and marketing group probably would admit it.
The question for investors is whether, when it emerges from what is bound to be a painful reinvention, there is going to be a place for WPP in a world of brands and campaigns that is also fundamentally changing (in fairness, that question applies equally to the group’s peers, none of which you’d probably recreate in their present form if you started from scratch).
WPP is one of the world’s four big advertising and marketing groups, vying for business with Publicis, Omnicom and IPG. It was founded in 1986 by Sir Martin Sorrell when he became chief executive of Wire and Plastic Products, a