Advertising’s identity crisis has reached the corner office. Nobody who runs an agency wants to be called an agency anymore.
On WPP’s full-year earnings call last month, CEO Cindy Rose declared her company was “no longer a holding company.” It is now, apparently, a “trusted growth partner for clients in the era of AI.” Over at Omnicom, John Wren’s boilerplate has quietly shifted too: the company now describes itself in filings as “the world’s leading marketing and sales company.” And Publicis Group CEO Arthur Sadoun doesn’t use any of those terms — he’s been telling investors for two years that Publicis has become a “category of one,” with a unique AI-powered model that puts it beyond comparison.
George Popstefanov isn’t buying it. None of the rebranding matters, the PMG founder and CEO argued, if these businesses continue to function like agencies — the FTE-heavy cost structures, the financial engineering, the principal media plays, the pivots from house of brands to branded house. He would know: 16 years ago, he made the same call, insisting PMG would not operate — or describe itself — as an agency.
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