Can WPP Reinvent Itself? A Blueprint for How the ‘Mad Men’ Can Outrun the ‘Math Men’

Throughout my marketing career across different countries, I’ve worked with the WPP network—from G2 to Grey, to Ogilvy, JWT, VML, Landor, BCW and many more. It’s been a lifelong creative partnership—sometimes frictional (in a positive way), often magical. It’s a company filled with some of the most brilliant, committed brand builders I’ve known—people who care deeply about building brands that last.

So this isn’t just another obituary for the holding company model. It’s a provocation from someone who still believes.

But belief needs a foundation—and right now, the numbers are crumbling:

• WPP's stock plummeted 17% in February 2025 after disappointing Q4 earnings
• It underperformed the FTSE Index by 33.83% over the past year
• Revenues slipped from £14.85B to £14.74B

This isn’t a dip. It’s a reckoning.

🧵 The Real Threat Isn’t AI. It’s Irrelevance.

Meta ’s Mark Zuckerberg recently declared:

“In the future, businesses won’t need to provide creative or media plans. Just tell us your objective and budget—and our AI will generate, optimise, and deliver everything.” (Source: TechCrunch, May 2025)

With Meta’s “Infinite Creative,” Zuckerberg envisions a future platform that renders briefs obsolete. One that automates creative, media, and optimisation. One that doesn’t need an agency.

But frankly, the bleeding started long before Mark declared the new frontier:

• Amazon Ads has become a $50B+ juggernaut, owning not just ecommerce media, but the analytics that shape it.
• Accenture Song , now nearing 40,000 employees, combines creativity, performance, martech, and operations in a single delivery stack.
• And Deloitte , IBM, and AWS are quietly building plug-and-play marketing platforms that sit inside client ecosystems, not outside them.

According to Boston Consulting Group (BCG) ’s report Future of Marketing with GenAI (June 2025), with the rapid adoption of AI:

• Content is now being generated 10x faster at 50% lower cost
• End-to-end campaign go-live has dropped from 18 weeks to under 3
• Brands are seeing 30–50% reductions in orchestration headcount
• Companies using GenAI across marketing functions are achieving 3–6x ROI
• Agency costs will drop by up to 30%, as brands internalise and automate more
• In short: what once needed a team of 12 now needs a team of 4—plus a GenAI stack

So picture this: You’re a global CMO. You've been asked to trim 30% of headcount, localise for 19 markets, and prove ROI on every cent. All while staying perfectly on brand.

Under that pressure, CMOs won’t just fire their agency. They’ll fire the whole old model.

So, if the rumour mills believe that a tech-background CEO will simply revolutionise AI adoption and WPP will turn around—it may be too little, too late.

🚀 So What Business Is WPP Really In?

Let’s go back to first principles. What business is an agency in?

I didn’t see the founding manifesto of WPP, but I’m fairly sure it didn’t say:

“We exist to win the maximum number of Grand Prix at Cannes Lions.”

That’s not a strategy. That’s an outcome. So let’s forget the award shows and manifestos for a second.

→ Agencies are in the business of delivering commercial growth by building strong brands.

That was true in the 1960s when agencies gave us We Try Harder, Heineken refreshes the parts..., and The ultimate driving machine. And it’s true now—even if the channels, formats, and expectations have changed beyond recognition.

But today’s brand world isn’t only defined by a big idea and a media buy. It still needs that idea—but also agility, integration, iteration, localisation, and measurable outcomes layered around it. And all of that at a cheaper rate.

And there I see the biggest opportunity from a client lens.

As the BCG report suggested, brands are seeing a 30–50% reduction in orchestration headcount. Clients still want to own brand strategy—but they need someone else to deliver:

• Across markets
• With agility
• With built-in optimisation and reporting
• Without increasing their brand budget

What they need isn’t another campaign creative. What they need is an operating system.

💪 What If WPP Becomes the AWS of Brand Delivery?

This is where agencies like WPP have an opening—if they’re brave enough to stop calling themselves agencies.

Imagine WPP not as a creative network, but as a BrandOps Engine: A modular platform (i.e. each service can run independently or plug into a unified system—like Lego blocks for brand delivery):

• Planning go-to-market activity
• Generating content at scale with AI
• Managing media, assets, localisation
• Measuring performance, feeding it back in
• Doing all of this while upholding brand governance and creativity
• Outcome-based pricing—measured, reported, real

Clients still steer the ship. WPP becomes the engine room.

It works like a modular pod, where all WPP vertical agencies are integrated:

1. Strategy Core – brand positioning, identity, architecture, audience insights, campaign idea
2. Execution Engine – AI-assisted content production, asset management
3. Local Activation Pod – in-market adaptation, compliance, publishing

The point is: BrandOps should be modular—Strategy, Execution, Local Activation—each offered à la carte or fully integrated.

For the brilliant people inside WPP—planners, creatives, strategists—this isn’t a call for replacement. This model will demand new muscles inside WPP—led not just by creatives, but by cross-functional teams fluent in ops, tech, and brand. It’s a plea for reinvention. So their talent can still lead, not lag, in this next chapter.

How is this BrandOps model different from what WPP already does for big clients today?

• Current WPP → A department store that assembles a custom outfit across floors
• BrandOps → A direct-to-consumer wardrobe service with AI stylists that knows your measurements, taste, and climate

And if WPP gets this pivot right? It could become the AWS of marketing operations—serving brands with leaner teams, faster outputs, and built-in intelligence.

📊 The Commercial Case

"In God we trust. All others must bring data."

So what makes this more than an opinion piece? The numbers do.

What I’ve proposed isn’t just about replacing the traditional agency model—it’s about partially replacing clients’ internal teams too.

Let’s look at the size of the prize (ballpark figures):

• Global ad spend in 2025: ~$920B [1]
• Internal content studios & ops: conservatively $100–150B [2]
• Martech platform management and CX transformation: $80–100B+ [3][4]
• Localisation/compliance services: $20–30B [5]

Potentially Addressable Market for BrandOps: $1.1–1.2 Trillion.

Even a 2% capture = $24B revenue runway.

Modular services open doors to entirely new budget lines—from marketing ops to digital transformation. BrandOps could drive better margins, lower delivery costs, and greater resilience across economic cycles.

And WPP already has what others are racing to build: full verticals, global footprint, trust, and talent.

Most importantly, clients’ marketing, finance, and procurement leads would welcome outcome-based pricing.

🏋️ What It Looks Like in Practice

Imagine you're Diageo , launching a new spirit across Southeast Asia.

WPP’s BrandOps Engine plugs into your martech stack. It:

• Pulls regional insight from integrated dashboards
• Anchors everything around a central creative idea that holds across cultures
• Generates 300+ content variants in 7 languages
• Distributes automatically via Meta, Grab, Shopee, YouTube, TikTok
• Tracks performance and adapts spend in real time
• Reports directly to the brand lead and finance dashboard

It won’t happen overnight. But when scaled post-pilot, it delivers execution at scale—while keeping brand creativity and cultural relevance intact.

🏇 Who WPP Would Be Competing With

If WPP redefines what business it’s in, this won’t be the old battlefield of holding companies elbowing each other for ad spend anymore. The competition will change:

• Meta : Owns targeting, distribution, and performance optimisation—fully automated and platform-first
• Accenture Song : Blends creative with systems integration, embedding martech directly into client operations
• Deloitte Digital : Specialises in customer experience transformation and enterprise-grade data architecture
• AWS : Offers the infrastructure backbone—automation, scalability, and AI tools for marketers
• Deel / Papaya Global : Enable flexible, cross-border marketing talent on tap—bypassing traditional agency headcount

The reality is—whether WPP walks that path or not—the playground has changed, and these new competitors will keep eroding the value of their traditional model.

🎨 What About Creativity?

The question remains: does this make WPP a 'Math Man' (i.e. chasing performance marketing, forgetting creativity)? The sacred thing we all fear AI will erase.

The big idea and great copy are still part of the modular offer. But they’ll land more effectively as AI is trained to write 1,000 nuanced versions of "Got Milk?":

• One for oat-drinkers in Berlin
• One for boomers in Dallas
• One for lactose-free teens in Tokyo

The big idea doesn’t die. It multiplies.

BrandOps doesn’t sideline creativity. It lets it lead—then scale.

⚡ So Where Do We Go From Here?

WPP has a chance to lead again—not by defending the past, but by designing the future.

Because the question isn’t how to make the current model more efficient. It’s whether that model still serves the job clients need done.

What it needs is the courage to stop calling itself an agency.

And let’s remember: when your legacy is creativity, the boldest move isn’t nostalgia. It’s reinvention.

🔍 Could WPP become the AWS of BrandOps? Or will Meta and Accenture get there first?

📚 References

[1] Statista. "Global Advertising Spending Forecast 2025." [2] Internal Content Studios & Ops: Estimate based on WFA data and Deloitte’s “CMO Survey” (2024). [3] MarketsandMarkets. "Marketing Automation Market by Solution – Global Forecast 2024." [4] Gartner. "CMO Spend Survey 2024." [5] Localisation/Compliance Services: Estimate derived from Lionbridge, SDL, and RWS revenue disclosures. [6] World Federation of Advertisers (WFA). "The Rise of In-House Agencies: Global Trends Report." [7] Boston Consulting Group (BCG). "Future of Marketing with GenAI," June 2025.