He added that to improve its fortunes in the U.S., GroupM would also continue to modernize its offer through acquisitions as it has within the influencer marketing space, and invest in creative talent and AI while training to develop its people.

New business, the bribery investigation and Ogilvy’s turnaround

Despite the performance of GroupM in North America, he believes that new business was “improving” citing recent account wins with Estée Lauder’s media account in China, Hyatt’s global creative account, Lenovo’s global creative account, Nestlé’s media account for Europe, Unilever’s media account in Australia and New Zealand and Verizon’s creative account for North America.  

Its new business performance by the client sector saw a decline in tech and digital services by 12.7% and in retail by 8.4% during the last three months. However, Telecom, Media and Entertainment were by +8.4%, Financial Services were up by 3.9%, Healthcare and Pharma were up by 1.5%, CPG grew by 14.5%, Automotive was up by 2.1%, Travel and Leisure was up by 4.1%.

We have senior leaders both from within China and outside China who have stepped in to manage it, and we are instructing independent experts to carry out an independent investigation at this point.

Mark Read, CEO of WPP

The total net new business performance was $1.4 billion (1.7 billion pounds) for the third quarter, bringing it to $3.4 billion (4.11 billion pounds) won for the year-to-date.

Meanwhile, following reports of bribery taking place involving an executive from within GroupM’s offices in China, Read revealed that the individual involved had been dismissed while the business had also stopped dealing with third parties who were alleged to have been involved. Two former employees are also reported to have been involved.

“We have senior leaders both from within China and outside China who have stepped in to manage it, and we are instructing independent experts to carry out an independent investigation at this point,” he added.

Commenting on Ogilvy being named as Adweek’s Global Agency of the Year earlier this month, Read praised the new creative energy and talent brought into the business by its Global CEO, Devika Bulchandani while “unleashing a lot of talent” that already worked there.

“I’m really pleased by the progress they have made,” he said. “Ogilvy will grow 3-4% this year. It’s the first time since before Covid that they have done it, and all credit to them for achieving that.”

It was also revealed that WPP is planning to host a Capital Markets Day in January 2024, when it would reveal more of its strategic roadmap over the next three to five years.