GroupM workforce braces for major restructure impacts
GroupM’s workforce across several regions is preparing for major impacts in the lead up to its anticipated restructure and rebrand to WPP Media.
Last week, it was widely reported that WPP will retire the GroupM brand globally — whose agencies include EssenceMediacom, Mindshare, and Wavemaker — and rebrand it to WPP Media.
It is understood WPP is evolving the agency brands, simplifying its structure, with plans to become “one unified integrated media team”.
It is part of the holdco’s broader consolidation strategy, which also includes integrating GroupM Nexus and investment teams into its operations.
In the US, staffers are preparing for significant change after CEO Sharb Farjami shared at an company-wide town hall that “about 40%-45%” of its workforce would be “impacted”.
A WPP spokesperson told Adweek that the term “impacted” does not refer to people who are leaving the business, but “is in reference to how we’re bringing teams together”. The spokesperson also told the American trade publication that those figures refers only to US-based staffers.
In general business parlance an “impacted” role is a redundancy. It is understood that layoffs have begun at the media agencies.
Meanwhile Asia is also feeling the effects, with Campaign Asia-Pacific reporting several markets are also beginning staff layoffs. According to its reports, the Indonesian office is feeling the pinch the most with several leadership roles eliminated.
It is not yet clear what the impact will be on the Australian and New Zealand market. Mumbrella has contacted GroupM locally and globally for comment.
Elsewhere, WPP has consolidated its creative and communications arms.
In 2023, the network announced the merger of its creative agencies VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson, bringing the VML name out of retirement. The change took effect on January 1, 2024.
Shortly after, it revealed plans to merge its communication agencies Hill & Knowlton and BCW, to form Burson. The name also returns to the WPP stable after retiring in early 2018 when it was merged with Cohn & Wolfe. The merger took effect on July 1, 2024.
In late 2024, it also wholly acquired T&Pm, which was born out of a partnership between The&Partnership and mSix&Partners. T&Pm has AI at the forefront of everything it does, and as part of the move, it placed WPP’s AI-powered marketing operations system – WPP Open – at the core of its marketing models.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the agency beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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USAID/Internews money dry up all of a sudden? 🤔
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It is strategically stupid to publicly declare AI at the core of your agency model because if the agency can do it, so can the client. And where is your agency’s role? In the graveyard.
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Advertising is a sector in real trouble with significant redundancies and little growth
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