17401: FCB + IPG = WTF.

This actual job listing posted March 11, 2026, seeks a VP Creative Director for FCB Health in the IPG Health network.

 

Um, FCB and IPG are DOA.

17400: WPP = Wacky Poppycock Perspectives.

Digiday published content about WPP, combining unremarkable reporting, unconventional opinion, and unsolicited advice—seasoned with a smattering of gibberish from Caucasian consultancies and pseudo analysts.

 

Seems everybody’s offering two cents on WPP, apparently unaware that the discontinuation of pennies makes such viewpoint contributions worthless.

 

Not sure why Digiday chose to illustrate the content with an image (depicted above) symbolizing transparency, as there are no references to the notion in the roughly 1200-word exposition.

 

For WPP, transparency is invisible.

 

‘Nobody’s asking the question’: WPP’s biggest restructure in years means nothing until CMOs say it does

 

By Seb Joseph and Kimeko McCoy

 

For all the headlines, LinkedIn posts and hot takes generated by WPP’s Elevate28 plan, the most consequential audience has been largely absent from the conversation: the CMOs and senior marketers at the world’s biggest advertisers. Most have no idea it’s even happened. They don’t read the trades. They hear about this stuff through consultants, or when an agency review forces them to run the rule over who they’re working with.

 

“Nobody’s asking this question. Nobody’s saying, ‘hey, what’s going on over there at WPP?’ It’s just not happening,” says Steve Boehler, founder of agency consultancy the Mercer Island Group, which is currently overseeing several pitches on behalf of major marketers.

 

Which is precisely why the hard part starts now for WPP. The narrative is set. What remains to be seen is whether the group can turn it into something clients actually feel — in their day-to-day work, in their pitches, in the results they’re being asked to deliver.

 

Because ultimately that’s what it always comes down to. These businesses have cycled through enough names and structures to fill a rebrand graveyard — agencies, holding companies, marketing services groups, integrated growth partners — but the underlying test never changes: can they make CMOs more effective? That question has never mattered more. The best CMOs are fighting to move further upstream, closer to where capital flows and the big decisions get made. They need partners who can help them get there. Not agencies still thinking in campaign cycles.

 

“I think it’s appealing only if they [WPP] know what they’re doing right now. It’s not about what’s going to happen six months from now, and they’re able to become a strategic partner to their brands, to the brands that they work with,” said Courtney Brown Warren, CMO of Kickstarter. “If you can feel like an extension of our team, then I don’t think any CMO is necessarily worried about the earnings call.”

 

Whether WPP can be that partner is what this whole restructure ultimately hinges on. The four new divisions, the £500m in promised savings, the folding of Ogilvy, VML and AKQA under a single creative roof, the AI platform, the pivot from holding company to single company — the case has been made. Now it has to be felt.

 

So far the early signs are encouraging. Estée Lauder trusted WPP with $500 million of its media dollars. Tesco stuck with the group in the U.K. and central Europe, citing its tech and AI chops as key factors in the decision. Meanwhile, Jaguar Land Rover is deep in negotiations to hand the group its global creative and media account. And at least one senior marketer who had privately written off WPP’s chances of retaining their business has seen enough to reconsider. 

 

“Our media account will go up for review later this year and I won’t rule out WPP’s chances of keeping it,” said the marketer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Everything that’s wrong with WPP can be fixed with everything that’s right about it.”

 

They’ll know soon enough. That account joins a wider wave of pitches that will amount to the first real stress test for CEO Cindy Rose’s plan. The competitive context makes it harder still: Publicis has been executing this same playbook for the better part of six years and has the numbers to show for it. Omnicom, meanwhile, arrives at the table flush with the scale and data firepower that comes with absorbing IPG. For WPP, winning back momentum in new business won’t just be a test of the strategy — it’ll be a test of how much ground was lost while everyone else was moving. 

 

“Simplification has been a consistent ask, with many advertisers being vocal about the need for fewer silos, greater accountability and more integrated teams,” said Gerry D’Angelo, former vp of global media at P&G. “In that sense, what WPP is doing now reflects advertiser expectations. Plus, we’ve already seen Publicis and others move toward more unified operating models. The previous complexity of holding companies didn’t match the pace at which advertisers need to operate these days. Strategically, this feels aligned with what advertisers have been asking for.”

 

But spend enough time around WPP right now and the distance between the pitch and product becomes visible. As recently as this week, the group, represented by senior execs including Kate Rowlinson, CEO of WPP Media U.K, Victoria Appleby, U.K. CEO and WPP Media president of T&P and Nick Henthorn, InfoSum svp of U.K. and EMEA, brought two sets of consultants into its London offices to demonstrate how its AI platform might work for one of their clients.

 

It was a meeting that, according to one exec with knowledge of it, spent little time on the new strategic direction and more on making the technology feel tangible. To those in the room, it was a reminder that a credible plan and a felt experience are still two very different things. 

 

The frustrating thing is that none of this is new territory for WPP. The group has spent years investing in tech that its own operating model was arguably designed to resist. Platform tools built for collaboration sat unused because agency teams kept working in their own environments. Data strategies built for media couldn’t talk to creative. AI capabilities were sold into clients before underlying structure was ready to support them at scale. The problem was never the ambition, it was the alignment — or the lack of it. 

 

Publicis solved for this earlier and more ruthlessly, building its tech, data and operating model as a single system rather than a collection of connected parts. The result was a less sophisticated platform but a far more consistent client experience. WPP is now attempting something similar, only later and under considerably more financial pressure. Rose’s restructure addresses the organizational fragmentation directly. But reorganizing around is one thing. Making the tech, the data infrastructure and the commercial model all pull in the same direction — at the same time — is another. 

 

That is the execution risk sitting underneath everything else. The 2017 transparency scandal, the principal buying controversies, the ongoing lawsuit with a lawsuit — much of the damage done to WPP’s reputation traces back to the same combination: structures too complex to hold anyone accountable and margins too squeezed to resist filling the gap elsewhere. Those conditions don’t disappear with a new strategy. If anything, they can compound them. Agency brands get folded, teams get restructured, familiar faces disappear — and clients who thought they knew who to call wake up one morning to find the answer has changed. A simpler WPP with a healthier P&L could break that cycle. The question is whether this time it means it.

 

“Every organization, I believe, needs to consider to what extent they are feeding the dragon that may end up killing them when it comes to AI,” said Ebiquity CEO Ruben Schreurs, whose firm advises major advertisers on media and agency performance. “The agency holdcos, or Marketing Operating Companies as I call them, are exposed to the same risk in the mid-long term, unless they can capture and commercialize sufficient proprietary assets that serve as a sustainable competitive moat.”

17399: FYI COPPA 2.0 ICYMI.

 

MediaPost reported the US Senate unanimously passed a bill designed to further restrict online enterprises’ ability to collect and harness data from youth under 17.

 

If the bill becomes law, expect quite a bit of collateral damage in Adland, adversely affecting DEIBA+ progress.

 

First, digital ads targeting youth tend to be low-budget projects typically handled by entry- and junior-level staff. Indeed, such staffers are arguably best qualified to produce messaging that connects with youth audiences.

 

So, erasing digital ads targeting youth results in reducing the need for entry- and junior-level staff, an industry segment already experiencing declining job opportunities.

 

Second, entry- and junior-level positions have historically been the main gateway for non-Whites to access Adland; hence, there will be fewer racial and ethnic minorities—an already underrepresented group.

 

Should President Donald J. Trump ultimately sign the bill, he’ll greatly improve his chances to repeat as White Man Of The Year.

 

Senate Passes Bill Prohibiting Ads Targeting Minors Under 17

 

By Wendy Davis

 

The Senate on Thursday unanimously passed a bill that would impose new restrictions on online companies’ ability to collect and harness data from teens under 17.

 

The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) introduced by Senators Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) and Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), would expand the current children’s privacy law by prohibiting website and app operators from knowingly serving targeted ads to users under 17 — including ads based on those teens’ online activity.

 

The measure, if enacted, would continue to allow companies to serve teens and young children with contextual ads — meaning ads based on the content of the websites or apps where the ads are displayed.

 

The bill also would prohibit websites and apps from knowingly collecting personal data from users between the ages of 13 and 16 without their consent.

 

Currently, federal law prohibits online companies from knowingly collecting personal information from users under 13 without their parents’ consent.

 

The bill’s definition of personal information includes names, email addresses, biometrics, location information and pseudonymous identifiers like IP addresses and cookies.

 

The proposed law’s restrictions would apply if companies have “actual knowledge” of users’ ages, or “knowledge fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances.”

Markey called the Senate’s move “a major step forward for protecting children and teens online.”

 

“Kids, families, and parents have waited far too long for Congress to pass legislation and stop Big Tech’s relentless tracking and targeting of children and teens online,” he stated Thursday afternoon.

 

The House Energy and Commerce committee on Thursday had been slated to consider a version of the bill, but Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Kentucky) withdrew the measure from the agenda in the afternoon, after learning of the bill’s passage in the Senate.

 

“Since we’ve been here today, our staffs have continued to work towards a bipartisan agreement, and both sides feel there’s been substantial progress towards a path forward,” Guthrie said. “To that end, I’ve decided that we will not consider COPPA today.”

17398: Mo Money No Money Mo Problems.

Adweek reported on a study revealing the obvious: women in Adland continue to make less money than male counterparts.

 

While Adweek did not indicate if the study broke down racial and ethnic data, here’s another obvious revelation: underpaid White women in Adland continue to make waaaaay more money than underpaid—and underrepresented—women of color peers.

 

Bet cash money on it.

 

Women in Advertising Are Closing Every Gap They Can. The Pay Gap Persists Anyway 

 

A new study finds a stubborn 5% pay gap and points to managerial gatekeeping and workplace social dynamics as key culprits

 

By Audrey Kemp

 

A new study examining pay in the U.S. advertising industry finds that women are still earning less than their male peers, even after accounting for nearly every variable commonly cited to explain the disparity.

 

The research, conducted by strategist Jess Watts in partnership with Dr. Nancy Wayne of UCLA and data scientist Ryan Crone, analyzed survey responses from more than 900 advertising professionals across agency types, roles, and seniority levels.

 

DNA&Stone, the independent agency where Watts joined as chief strategy officer in December (and an ADWEEK Small Agency of the Year 2025 finalist), is publishing the study.

 

After controlling for factors such as education, experience, hours worked, geography, and agency type, the researchers found that women earn about 5% less than men in advertising on average. For mothers, that figure climbs to 8%.

 

Both numbers are smaller than the broader U.S. gender wage gap but still statistically significant and, according to Watts, impossible to explain away through the usual structural arguments.

 

“We wanted to test the arguments that are often made about why the pay gap exists,” she said. “Things like education level, job choice, performance, negotiation, or hours worked. What we found is that women are aggressively mitigating all of those factors, and the gap still exists.”

 

The study began as a personal project for Watts, a notable hire for DNA&Stone who previously served as director of integrated marketing strategy and brand planning at Expedia Group since 2022. She spent roughly two and a half years researching pay disparities independently, motivated by years of anecdotal accounts from colleagues across the industry.

 

“As soon as you start working in advertising, you hear stories,” Watts said. “Women comparing salaries with co-workers or realizing a male hire at the same level is earning more. It’s something many people felt in their bones, but there wasn’t enough rigorous data validating it.”

 

Watts developed the survey in partnership with academic researchers and distributed it across professional networks including the American Advertising Federation, alumni groups, and industry communities. She ultimately collected more than 1,000 responses, with 926 included in the final analysis.

 

The perception problem

 

Beyond measuring the pay gap itself, the research also examined how industry professionals perceive pay equity, and how those perceptions compare to reality.

 

Nearly all women surveyed (96%) said they believe a gender pay gap exists in advertising. Yet only about one-third believed they personally were being underpaid because of their gender.

 

Watts said that disconnect may reflect a psychological tension between acknowledging systemic inequity and wanting to believe one’s own workplace is fair.

 

“So much of our identity is tied to our work and our salary,” she said. “It can be easier to believe the industry has a problem in general than to accept that your own company might be treating you unfairly.”

 

The study also found that pay transparency remains limited across agencies. Nearly half of women surveyed said they do not understand how salary decisions are made at their organization, and more than two-thirds said they had worked at a company where employees were discouraged from discussing pay with colleagues, a practice that is illegal under federal labor law.

 

Where the gap gets made

 

Structural opacity, however, is only part of the picture.

 

One of the clearest patterns emerged when women attempted to address perceived pay inequities with their managers. Women who raised pay concerns with supervisors, who were predominantly male in the sample, were significantly more likely to encounter indifference or stalled conversations than male employees making similar requests.

 

“Women were going to their managers and asking about pay disparities, but the conversation often stopped there,” Watts said. “Managers would say they’d look into it or push it off, and nothing would happen.”

 

By contrast, male employees were more likely to receive direct answers about promotions or pay decisions, even when the outcome was negative.

 

“That gatekeeping point, where the conversation stops at the manager level, is one of the biggest places agencies could intervene,” Watts said.

 

Another striking finding involved workplace dynamics between male and female colleagues. The study found that men who reported being uncomfortable working closely with women tended to earn more than women overall, a pattern Watts attributes to homosocial reproduction: the tendency for leaders to reward and promote people who resemble themselves.

 

“If decision-makers feel more comfortable with people who remind them of themselves, those employees may get more opportunities, bigger projects, and promotions,” Watts said. “Over time, those advantages compound financially.”

 

UCLA’s Wayne said the insights into social dynamics were among the most significant to emerge from the study. “Too often, men default to comfort and familiarity, even when it quietly reinforces inequity,” she said. “Closing the gender pay gap means encouraging men to choose fairness over comfort, and there is still a ton of work to be done to get men on board and fix this continuing problem.”

 

For Watts, the findings underscore how seemingly modest pay gaps produce substantial long-term consequences. Over a 25-year career, the study estimates the gap could translate into more than $167,000 in lost earnings for women who have never been pregnant, and more than $271,000 for mothers.

 

“That’s not small potatoes,” Watts said. “That’s student loan debt, that’s buying a home, that’s building generational wealth.”

 

Samantha Choi Cadley, founder and CEO/CCO of independent agency Manual Labor, said the dynamic is familiar. A friend of hers at a larger agency discovered she had been underpaid only when an acquisition forced the agency’s books open.

 

“She found out she was absolutely getting paid less, even as she was doing more work,” Choi Cadley said. “Not even peer-to-peer.”

 

Now running her own shop, Choi Cadley said the solution starts with who is making compensation decisions. “It’s about who you’re putting at the table,” she said. “If you have the same group of people that have come up through the same organization or model, you’re still playing the same habits, the same structure, whether intentionally or not.”

 

Watts hopes the research will prompt agencies to take concrete action, recommending pay band transparency, regular compensation audits and escalation processes so pay equity concerns do not stop at the direct manager level. Though the research predates her appointment, DNA&Stone has already begun implementing those measures internally, revising promotion guidelines to clarify how employees advance.

 

“Transparency is important,” Watts said. “But accountability is what ultimately closes the gap.”

 

Without those changes, she warns, the industry risks losing the very talent it depends on: “When nearly half of women say gender discrimination is affecting their career, eventually some of them are going to leave. And that’s not the kind of industry any of us want to be building.”

17397: Will Cindy Rose Consider Moving From CEO To Intern?

 

More About Advertising reported independent advertising agency UltraSuperNew offered an internship to WPP CEO Cindy Rose, thinking she could benefit from the experience since she’s never worked at a White advertising agency.

 

Okay, except Rose’s predecessors hardly qualify as bona fide admen.

 

Prior to launching WPP, Sir Martin Sorrell served as Group Finance Director for Saatchi & Saatchi.

 

Prior to succeeding Sorrell, Mark Read served as Global CEO of Wunderman, a dull direct marketing agency that transitioned into a dull digital agency—before being merged with J. Walter Thompson and finally swallowed by VML.

 

Sorrell abandoned WPP as the global enterprise was financially tanking. Ditto Read.

 

So, the White men preceding Rose arguably leveraged their shaky Adland expertise to orchestrate the White holding company’s downfall.

 

Other holding company CEOs have questionable backgrounds.

 

Stagwell Chairman and CEO Mark Penn’s resume includes pollster and political strategist. Penn served as CEO for Burson-Marsteller, a PR firm that WPP is reportedly seeking to dump. Like Rose, he also served as an executive at Microsoft.

 

Havas Chairman and CEO Yannick Bolloré advanced via nepotism.

 

In short, Rose is not more unqualified than any man running a holding company.

 

UltraSuperNew tweaking Rose feels misguided and misogynistic—even though she’ll probably fare worse than the White men who blundered before her.

 

Although Rose’s ultimate failure won’t be a result of her Adland inexperience; but rather, because it’s futile to resuscitate a dead dinosaur.

 

Rose might eventually need a returnship, not an internship.

 

PS: UltraSuperNew has questionable leadership too. An agency born and raised in Harajuku appears to be run by White men and a handful of Japanese executives. In Adland, there’s nothing ultra, super, or new about corporate colonization.

 

Indy agency offers ad newcomer Cindy Rose a helping hand

 

By MAA Staff

 

Independent agency UltraSuperNew has noticed that new WPP CEO Cindy Rose has never actually worked in an ad agency and has offered to help out. (Don’t know why they’re so surprised, these days a working knowledge of — or even fleeting acquaintance with — AI is much more desirable.)

 

Anyway, agency co-founder Marc Wesseling is offering Rose (who spent her career at Disney, Vodafone and, latterly, Microsoft) an internship.

 

He says: “We read about Cindy’s new strategy for WPP with great interest and great sympathy. (She) has had a remarkable career in tech, media and telecommunications. She is clearly a brilliant executive. But we noticed that she has never actually worked inside an advertising agency. Not a big one. Not a small one. Not any one. And we think that might be a problem when you’re running one of the biggest collections of advertising agencies in the world.”

 

Interns at UltraSuperNew are expected to contribute from day one, from making coffee to sitting in on client calls. Sadly, they’re unpaid but with offices in Tokyo, Singapore and Amsterdam there are compensations.

17396: No Flowers For International Women’s Day…?

 

International Women’s Day 2026 campaign theme reads: Give To Gain

 

Here’s the hype from the official IWD website:

 

When we give, we gain.

 

Together, let’s help forge gender equality through abundant giving.

 

The IWD 2026 Give To Gain Campaign encourages a mindset of generosity and collaboration.

 

Give To Gain emphasizes the power of reciprocity and support. When people, organizations, and communities give generously, opportunities and support for women increase. Giving is not a subtraction, it's intentional multiplication. When women thrive, we all rise.

 

Whether through donations, knowledge, resources, infrastructure, visibility, advocacy, education, training, mentoring, or time, contributing to women's advancement helps create a more supportive and interconnected world.

 

What will you Give to Gain gender equality?

 

Okay, but the campaign imagery looks like women are begging for handouts.

 

Since celebrating International Women’s Day could be considered a DEIBA+ stunt, it appears Adland diminished performative propaganda for IWD this year.

 

For White women, Adland continues to present a diversity of disrespect—including gender pay gaps, sexual harassment, unequal opportunities, indifference for maternity and menopause, and much more.

 

For women of color, things get even worse.

 

The global industry presents unfair challenges to women on International Women’s Day—and all year long.

17395: Disempowerment Disembowelment.

 

Advertising Age published a perspective from a White woman advocating for fighting in Adland’s “new era of disempowerment.”

 

Technically, it should be labeled renewed era of disempowerment—as it’s really the revivals of gender inequality and systemic racism.

 

Hey, you know the DEIBA+ dream is being deferred, disrespected, and denied when even White women are feeling the abandonment of faux commitment to the cause.

 

How to keep fighting in advertising’s new era of disempowerment

 

By Mindy Goldberg

 

Let’s just say it: advertising is in a new era of disempowerment, and if you’re a woman, a person of color or someone who actually cares about the creative work, you’re feeling it.

 

This isn’t subtle anymore. It’s about wielding financial power, and nobody’s pretending otherwise. Business ethics and respect have left the building at the corporate level, and the rest of us are in survival mode—watching a political climate shift in ways that will cost people jobs, benefits and ground that took decades to gain. And yes, it will land hardest on the people who can least afford it. It always does.

 

I started a production company in 1989. I’ve been a woman in this industry for over 30 years, and I want to be clear: it was never easy. There was always some version of the same deal on the table: stroke the right egos, do the work, learn the craft, be capable and warm and non-threatening all at once—and maybe, maybe you’d advance. The business was 99% white, and women were largely expected to support the men in charge.

 

In the last decade, you could feel momentum building toward change. Initiatives like Free the Bid opened doors and created real opportunity for women and other underrepresented voices. For a moment, it felt like history was bending in a new direction. But the progress didn’t stick.

 

We knew the prejudice was there. It knew we knew. There was an unspoken arrangement: keep your head down, and it would keep its voice down.

 

That arrangement is over.

 

What’s shifted isn’t just policy. It’s permission. The disrespect that once operated in whispers no longer bothers to whisper. Look at who is still at the top. It’s familiar. A lot of what passed for progress didn’t run very deep.

 

For those of us on the creative production side, there’s another layer.

 

The actual craft, the whole thing this industry claims to value, is being financially and ethically gutted by people who see it as a line item. As budgets tighten and timelines compress, risk is pushed downstream. “Efficiency” at the top is made possible by uncompensated labor further down the chain. We’re not talking about a few extra hours. It’s weeks of unbillable work—bidding cities, holding vendors, calling crews, building schedules—before a job is awarded, before a director is recommended, sometimes before it’s killed altogether.

 

Business practices have never been less efficient.

 

Efficiency is easy when someone else absorbs the cost.

 

Production companies like mine—built over decades on talent, relationships and creative commitment—are watching decision-making shift away from creative leadership and toward the bottom line. Ethical business practices are seen as old-fashioned. The soul of the work is an inconvenience.

 

So. What do we do with that?

 

Here’s what I know after 30-plus years of building something on my own terms: you cannot outsource your values. Not to a company. Not to a movement. Not to a political moment that may look completely different in 18 months. What holds is what you actually do.

 

The hiring decision.

 

The pushback against unfair business practices.

 

The moment in the room where you could stay quiet—and don’t.

 

That’s the work.

 

Toni Morrison said it simply: “If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.”

 

That’s still the job.

 

Mindy Goldberg founded Epoch Films in 1989 with a mission to introduce filmmakers with a unique perspective to the advertising world.