\n\t\t\t
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/media-agencies-race-digiday.jpg\")
\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWe now have more data than any of our competition reaching five billion consumers, connecting intelligence of all forms, including IDs, across a vast federated ecosystem,\u201d said Lesser on the call.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a line that\u2019s been making the rounds with clients in the U.S. and the U.K. for months, ad execs told Digiday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were talking a lot about de-duplicated reach in that meeting,\u201d said a senior marketer, who anonymously shared details of their discussion with WPP.<\/p>\n
Behind the jargon \u2014 talk of \u201cde-duplicated reach\u201d and \u201cfederated ecosystems\u201d \u2014 is a larger shift. WPP, like its peers, is trying to move upstream \u2014 away from time sheets and media margins toward something closer to software.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan is to move away from selling people\u2019s time, services and their own inventory and move to selling platform-based solutions,\u201d said a former WPP Media exec.<\/p>\n
The idea isn\u2019t new, but AI gives it more weight \u2014\u00a0allowing agencies to package tools CMOs can buy rather than hours they can bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For WPP Media, that tool is Open Intelligence, the group\u2019s data solution and AI model. They power Open Media Studio, WPP\u2019s end-to-end media planning, delivery and measurement platform within the WPP Open services suite.<\/p>\n
Unlike Publicis, which owns Epsilon, or Omnicom, which owns Acxiom, WPP doesn\u2019t own a large first-party data set. Instead, Lesser\u2019s bet is that ownership is overrated \u2014 that access, scale and the ability to integrate partners is enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Why? Open Intelligence combines the same volume of traditional identity data as competitors with hundreds of additional partners including media, commerce and data companies such as Google, Amazon and TikTok. These datasets \u2014\u00a0often behind walled gardens \u2014 are connected via WPP Media\u2019s federated learning technology allowing the group to analyze and model performance without centralizing or owning the data.<\/p>\n
The promise, according to one marketer and three consultants who have heard the pitch: more accurate predictions before a dollar is spent that lead to better outcomes once they are.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have seen success with this already on some of our long-standing clients in terms of outperforming traditional identity-based approaches to performance,\u201d said Lesser on the earnings call.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That pitch helped win Amazon\u2019s media business in Europe\u00a0\u2014 not because WPP owned a mountain of data but because it convinced Amazon it didn\u2019t need one, said the former WPP exec. Whether other advertisers, especially those less technically fluent, will buy in is less certain. Even Lesser acknowledged as much.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of Mars, we were in the process of deploying Open Media Studio for [them],\u201d he told analysts on the call.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t stick. Mars chose Publicis instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What won out, according to two people familiar with the decision, was Publicis\u2019 ability to show how it could tie creative decisions directly to performance \u2014 through a tech stack Epsilon helped build and Publicis actually owns. That kind of vertical integration isn\u2019t something WPP can yet claim.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the rub for WPP: it\u2019s asking CMOs to buy into a big idea before the proof is there. That can work if the vision is sharp enough \u2014\u00a0and clearly it was for Electronic Arts, Hisense and Hero Motocorp, which have all hired or re-hired the group this year. But not every advertiser is sold. They\u2019ve heard similar promises before only to get optimization for clicks and conversations rather than business outcomes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What they want is integrated creative and medium backed by credible modelling \u2014\u00a0not another round of recycled attribution math.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came away from a recent meeting with [WPP Media leadership] with a lot of questions and told my contact that I needed to go away and think about it,\u201d said the senior marketer who met with the group earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the center of that hesitation: de-duplicated reach. Still one of advertising\u2019s biggest unsolved problems. The promise from WPP was that Open Intelligence could deliver a sharper, unified view of how many real people actually saw an ad across platforms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s quite the claim and that\u2019s before you consider the fact that they don\u2019t own a lot of data,\u201d said the marketer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A lot of that depends on InfoSum \u2014 now part of WPP\u2019s stack \u2014 and its ability to match and model data across walled gardens and other online spaces alike. During the meeting, and on the call, it was positioned as a foundational piece.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That centrality is now shaping WPP\u2019s wider strategy. Digiday understands WPP is (partially at least) pulling up the drawbridge when it comes to its third-party tech and data relationships in favor of its internal toolset and select partners that meet specific criteria. According to sources, this has been characterized by WPP rebuffing partnership pitches, with executives there understood to be shifting all media planning and buying to its own suite of products, such as Open Media Studio<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still \u201cpulling up the drawbridge\u201d doesn\u2019t mean going it alone. Open Intelligence recently added 22 new partners including FreeWheel, Lumen Research, DICK\u2019s Sporting Goods and Criteo.\u00a0<\/p>\n The long road to transformation<\/p>\n In fairness, it\u2019s been just four months since Lesser rolled out his plan, so there\u2019s still time for it to take hold. There are even signs of progress: in some marketers and categories, WPP has been more aggressive on pricing and more attentive to clients it wants to keep, according to one ad exec familiar with those efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBased on what I\u2019m hearing from my clients, WPP Media is doing a decent job,\u201d said the ad exec. \u201cOK, they\u2019re not necessarily competitive but they\u2019re making it clear they\u2019re not going to be outmuscled by rivals on pricing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Granted, that\u2019s not necessarily central to the transformation Lesser envisions for WPP Media, but it matters. Especially when the group\u2019s data and AI pitch hasn\u2019t yet been tested in sustained, head-to-head battles with rival holdcos. And given the business\u2019s precarious spot, a win\u2019s a win.\u00a0<\/p>\n Revenues fell 4.3% in the first half of the year, down to \u00a36.63 billion from \u00a36.92 billion. The second quarter alone was down 5.8%.\u00a0<\/p>\n For a company that still leans heavily on media, those numbers point to something more structural. WPP Media is overdue for a course correction.\u00a0<\/p>\n The recent losses of the Mars and Coca-Cola North America accounts alone have pulled an estimated $2.5 billion in billings from the business, according to COMvergence \u2014 though WPP has also picked up roughly $1.4 billion so far this year in new and retained clients.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAny time you transform a business as dramatically as we have, you\u2019re going to experience some disruption,\u201d said Lesser. \u201cWe did see that in the first half but we\u2019re substantially through that transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe. But the first half left scars. And they\u2019re still fresh.\u00a0<\/p>\n