Advertising Age, Adweek, and other trade publications reported on the Roserrection of WPP—a three-year Hail Mary game plan dubbed Elevate 28, designed to be a turnaround maneuver for the White holding company.
WPP CEO Cindy Rose declared the enterprise was “no longer a [White] holding company.”
“We’re a single [White] operating company, and our mission is changing,” Rose explained. “We want to be a trusted growth partner for our clients in the era of AI.”
Okay, except Rose’s grand vision sounds exactly like the mad dreams of every holding company: simplified restructuring, AI reinvesting, asset rejecting, real estate razing, and workforce reducing.
The Elevate 28 unveiling was accompanied by the official introduction of WPP Creative—a global banner over all White advertising agencies in the network. As previously noted, WPP Creative offers nothing original, copying what other holding companies have executed in recent years.
In summation: Elevate 28 should be renamed Eviscerate 28 and WPP Creative is an oxymoron.
Oh, and the voluminous press coverage for WPP makes zero mention of DEIBA+ initiatives.
WPP targets £500 million in annual savings—CEO on job cuts, potential agency sales and a big bet on principal media
By Brian Bonilla
WPP is targeting £500 million ($678 million) in annual cost savings by 2028 as part of a sweeping restructuring aimed at returning the struggling British agency holding company to growth. The overhaul was announced alongside a forecast of a steeper-than-expected revenue decline for this year.
Cindy Rose, who joined WPP as CEO less than six months ago, is working to reignite its growth at WPP after it was hit by declining sales and a string of client losses.
Rose said she plans to reinvest in growth areas such as AI and a new enterprise solutions unit that will combine data platforms and customer management tools for WPP’s clients. Savings will come from eliminating overlapping support functions in finance and human resources, cutting spending on real estate and disposing of assets.
The company announced that it’s planning a portfolio review this year to unlock value, without providing further details. Rose admitted there will be job cuts, but didn’t clarify how many.
“There’s duplication that we’re going to eliminate,” Rose told Ad Age. “There’s simplification within the organizational structure that we’re going to address. There are shared services and real estate. I’m amazed at how many buildings we own around the world. There’s a lot of opportunity—a lot of opportunity—for us to achieve that target.”
While Rose declined to comment on specific job cut numbers, she said the company would reinvest in roles in growth areas. WPP had about 98,655 employees as of December, down from 108,044 at the end of 2024.
High-growth areas include media, enterprise solutions and global client lead positions, including the formation of a new team called “client solution architects,” Rose said. In particular, the company will be looking for “AI-native” employees, she added.
The restructuring will divide the company into four main units—creative, production, media and enterprise solutions. Today, it announced that its creative agencies are being placed under a structure called WPP Creative. WPP consolidated its production capabilities as WPP Production last month, retiring the Hogarth name. WPP’s media buying unit, GroupM, was renamed WPP Media last May.
Rose also clarified that WPP is looking at potential sale opportunities for various assets.
“I can’t name specific assets, for obvious reasons, it would impact our sale process,” Rose said. We’ve done a strategic review of the entire group … looked at every single asset we own and partly own, and asked: ‘Is this part of the core integrated proposition, and are we the best owners?’ We’ve come up with our list and started a formal process to explore all the options available to us. Some of that might be outright disposals; some of that might be partial disposals and strategic partnerships.”
WPP also made it clear that principal-based media buying—when media agencies buy media and resell it to clients—is a big part of its turnaround plan.
Principal-based media buying “is very important … because clients are asking for it. There’s increasing demand for it. There’s a specific need for it, and we hope to shift our business mix within the media team more in that direction in the future,” Rose said in her interview with Ad Age.
This week, it was revealed that WPP had generated roughly $1 billion in net sales from “non-product related income,” including rebates and principal-based media buying, with annual growth targets of 15%, through a 2024 report shared in legal documents by a former WPP executive who is in the midst of a legal dispute with the holding company.
How WPP’s performance stacks up to rivals
WPP is coming off a difficult year. Like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs fell 6.9% in the fourth quarter and 5.5% in 2025, broadly in line with its latest guidance for a 5.5% to 6% decline. WPP had cut that outlook in October, after a previous forecast called for a 3% to 5% annual decline.
The company projected that like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs would fall by “mid to high-single digits” in the first half of 2026, followed by an “improving trajectory” in the second half. Analysts expected a 3.2% drop, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
In comparison, Publicis Groupe’s organic revenue rose 5.6% last year, and earlier this month it forecast 4% to 5% growth for 2026. Omnicom, the industry’s new largest player by revenue after acquiring Interpublic Group of Cos., did not provide a 2026 forecast when it released its fourth-quarter results last week.
WPP’s 2025 operating profit dropped 23% to £1.32 billion, and the company announced it is slashing its dividend for the year by 62% to 15 pence.
“Our recent underperformance has been driven by excessive organizational complexity, a lack of an integrated operating model and inconsistent strategic execution,” Rose said in a statement, adding that these issues are “all within our power to fix.”
WPP shares fell 5.6% to 257.2 pence at 08:33 a.m. in London on Thursday. They were down 67% over the past year.
—With reporting by Bloomberg
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