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

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 Mercer, 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.

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As brands respond to AI search, walls crumble between paid and organic

For the best part of 20 years, paid search and SEO have operated as separate disciplines. But as they respond to the zero-click search era, marketing agencies are erasing the boundaries between organic and paid search teams.

Elena MacGurn, svp of search at Digitas, told Digiday the Publicis Groupe agency has begun reorienting teams from either side of the search aisle around common client objectives. 

“Unless you have that shared goal… your strategies are going to be at odds,” said MacGurn, who spoke at Digiday’s Media Buying Summit this week in Nashville.

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