 Logo used as of 2018 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| LSE: WPP NYSE: WPP FTSE 250 Component | |
| ISIN | JE00B8KF9B49  |
| Industry | |
| Founded |
|
| Founders | (as an advertising company) |
| Headquarters | London, England, UK |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | |
| Services |
|
| Revenue |  £14,741 million (2024)[2] |
 £1,325 million (2024)[2] | |
| £629 million (2024)[2] | |
Number of employees | 100,000 (2026)[3] |
| Subsidiaries | |
| Website | www |
WPP plc is a Britishmultinationalcommunications,advertising,public relations, technology, and commerce holding company headquartered inLondon, England. It is the world's largest advertising company, as of 2023.[4] WPP plc owns many companies, which include advertising, public relations, media, andmarket research networks such asAKQA,Burson,Hogarth,Landor,Ogilvy,VML, andWPP Media (EssenceMediacom,Mindshare,Wavemaker, choreograph and more). It is one of the "Big Three" agency companies, alongsidePublicis andOmnicom.[5] WPP has a primary listing on theLondon Stock Exchange, and is a constituent of theFTSE 250 Index.[6]
The company was founded asWire and Plastic Products plc to manufacture wire shopping baskets in 1971. In 1985Martin Sorrell andPreston Rabl,[7] searching for a listed company through which to build a worldwide marketing services company, bought a controlling stake.[8][9]
In 1986, WPP became the parent company of Picquotware, a manufacturer of teapots and jugs, based inNorthampton. In November 1987 a fire destroyed the Northampton factory, so production was restarted atBurntwood in Staffordshire. On 25 November 2004 WPP closed the Burntwood factory, and stopped manufacturing Picquotware; all assets were sold on 14 December 2004.[10]
In the 1980s, WPP began its strategy of growth via acquisitions.[11] In later years, WPP regularly acquired dozens of companies annually.[11] In January 1987, the company acquired Scott Stern Associates, at the time Scotland's largest design and advertising company.[12] In the same year (1987), the company acquired J. Walter Thompson (includingJWT,Hill & Knowlton, and MRB Group) for $566m.[8] The company was listed on the NASDAQ in 1988 (and later switched its secondary listing to the NYSE).[13] In 1989, it acquired Ogilvy Group for $864m.[8]
In 1989, WPP sold the JWT Tokyo office building to help pay for its J. Walter Thompson acquisition. Before purchasing the company, Martin Sorrell had reportedly identified that JWT owned its Tokyo office, rather than leasing it, and it was undervalued in the company's accounts.[14][15] The building was sold two years after the acquisition and at the peak of the Japanese property market for a record $205 million, offsetting more than a third of the $566m company acquisition cost.[16]
WPP's acquisitions continued into the 1990s, when WPP bought firms in the healthcare advertising,digital marketing,online shopping,digital media, data management, retail andcorporate consultancy, andsports marketing industries. This included the 1999 acquisition of Lambie-Nairn.[11] In 1998, WPP formed an alliance with Asatsu-DK Inc. of Japan.[8]
In May 2000, WPP agreed to acquire the United States–basedYoung & Rubicam Group for $5.7 billion, in what was at the time the largest ever takeover in the advertising sector.[17] The takeover made WPP the largest advertising company in the world measured by billings and revenue, overtakingOmnicom Group andInterpublic.[17]
In the 2000s, WPP Digital was created to develop the group's digital capabilities.[18] In October 2008, WPP acquired market research firmTaylor Nelson Sofres for £1.6 billion.[19][20] In 2009, WPP reduced its workforce by around 14,000 employees, or 12.3% of its then total staff numbers, due to theGreat Recession.[21][22]
In June 2012, WPP agreed to acquire the digital advertising agencyAKQA for US$540 million.[23][24] In November 2015, WPP agreed to acquire a majority stake inEssence, a global digital agency.[25]
In November 2016, WPP announced it will be acquiring PEP, LLC, a project management and procurement company that oversees shopper marketing promotions for clients, in the US.[26]
Many of WPP's constituent agencies useMicrosoft Windows, and the organisation was among those hit by the2017 cyberattacks on Ukraine, with some staff's computer access limited towebmail only as much as ten days later.[27][28]
WPP merged Burson-Marsteller with Cohn & Wolfe to becomeBCW (Burson Cohn & Wolfe) in February 2018.[29]
In April 2018, Martin Sorrell retired after 33 years, following allegations of personal misconduct and misuse of company assets. Sorrell has denied the allegations.[30] Chairman Roberto Quarta was temporarily named executive chairman.[30] In September 2018, Mark Read, who was the global CEO of Wunderman,[31] was named CEO.[32][33]
In the late 2010s, the advertising industry faced significant challenges. Changes in the industry landscape included financial pressure on global clients, in particularfast-moving consumer goods clients, companies taking work in-house, the ability to directly advertise on tech platforms, and competition with consultancies.[34][35][36] While WPP had previously outperformed other companies in the industry, its growth slowed starting in 2017 and its market value dropped in 2018.[37] Critics said WPP needed to become "nimbler" and "leaner".[34] At the time, many WPP agencies operated mostly independently and competed for accounts.[38][39] In late 2018, Read said the company had grown "unwieldy with too much duplication".[32] He instituted a plan to reposition WPP as a "creative transformation company" and make its offer simpler.[32] Read emphasized the importance of technology[40] and also merged several WPP agencies:[32] J. Walter Thompson merged with Wunderman to create Wunderman Thompson[41] and Y&R merged with VML to create VMLY&R.[32] Within Read's first year as CEO, he trimmed WPP by selling more than 30 subsidiaries,[42] including a majority stake inKantar.[42] By selling a majority stake of Kantar toBain Capital, WPP is believed to have generated $3.1 billion to help pay down debt.[43] Read also sold the original Wire and Plastic Products company that Sorrell had purchased to create his business empire.[44]
The sale of 60% of the shares in Kantar was completed in December 2019. $1.9bn was used to reduce WPP's debt, and $1.2bn was returned to shareholders.[45][46]
In July 2022, WPP acquired Corebiz, a Latin American ecommerce agency, for an undisclosed amount.[47]
In July 2024, WPP announced the appointment of formerBT Group chief Philip Jansen as its chairman succeeding Roberto Quarta.[48] Jansen is set to take over from Quarta as chairman on 1 January 2025.[49]
In December 2024, WPP sold its stake inFGS Global toKohlberg Kravis Roberts for $767 million.[50]
On 9 June 2025, the company announced Mark Read would step down as chief executive at the end of 2025 once his replacement has been appointed.[50] On 10 July, WPP announced the appointment ofCindy Rose as its new chief executive, who assumed the role on 1 September 2025.[51]
WPP is a large holding company involved in communications, advertising, public relations, and other businesses.[11] It is considered the world's biggest advertising agency group.[40] WPP focuses on communications, experience, commerce, and technology.[52][53] Headquartered in London, England, WPP has approximately 130,000 employees throughout its portfolio of businesses across more than 100 countries, as of 2018.[32]
WPP's notable advertising agency company holdings includeGrey,Ogilvy,[11]VMLY&R, andWunderman Thompson.[54] TheXM Gravity Indonesia subsidiary company was founded in 2008.[55]
WPP's digital company holdings includeAKQA.[11] WPP's public relations and public affairs company holdings includeHill+Knowlton Strategies,BCW (Burson Cohn & Wolfe), and Ogilvy.[11] WPP's media investment management company holdings include GroupM,Mindshare,Wavemaker andEssence.[56] WPP's research insight and consulting companies includeKantar.[42]Hogarth Worldwide is a WPP-owned production company.[53]
WPP's shopper marketing promotions company is PEP, LLC (formerly Promotion Execution Partners).[26] WPP-owned brand consultancies include Superunion (a combination ofBrand Union,Lambie-Nairn, and three other brand consulting businesses)[57][58] andLandor.[11]
In 2005 advertising agency Cohn & Wolfe (later merged into WPP) was contracted byReckitt to operate ablog as the fictional character Barry Scott, advertising mascot for Reckitt's cleaning fluidCillit Bang, as aviral marketing platform. In October of that yearblogger Tom Coates wrote an emotional post to his own blog about his long-estranged father. Among the expressions of condolences and sympathy in the post's comment section was one from a user identifying themselves as Barry Scott, with a link back to Cohn & Wolfe's in-character blog as Barry Scott. Offended by the apparent use of his blog comments on such a personal post as aspam advertising venue, Coates traced the comment's originatingIP address through addresses owned byYoung & Rubicam and back to Reckitt. Reckitt initially denied responsibility for the message, but wrote Coates an apology acknowledging the message's inappropriateness, and Cohn & Wolfe issued a statement of remorse for their misuse of the "experimental" blog which they then ceased operating.[59][60]
The controversy and its fallout led to further discussions among the blogger community as well as the advertising industry on the ethical issues surrounding blogs being "operated" by fictional characters for the purposes of advertising without being clearly labeled as such, and the extent to which those blogs should be allowed to participate in the greaterblogosphere.[61][62][63]
With a number of shareholder revolts overexecutive pay having already happened at other public companies' AGMs earlier in the year, the media coverage ofMartin Sorrell's intended £12.93m compensation package drew increasing public attention in 2012.[64][65] The result was a 59.52% shareholder vote to reject the resolution.[65][66]
It has been reported that WPP goes to great lengths to lower its own corporate tax bill.The Guardian reported that between 2003 and 2009 the company paid £27m in UK corporation tax, compared to what the newspaper "might expect" based on reports of the firm making 15% of its profit in the UK, of around £126m.[67]
In 2012, the Indian broadcastingNDTV filed a lawsuit against Television Audience Measurement (TAM), a joint venture of the former competitorsNielsen and Kantar Media Research which for years has provided the only TV audience measurement system in India. The lawsuit alleged that viewership data were manipulated in favor of broadcasters willing to provide bribes.[68] WPP Plc was listed among the defendants as the holding group of Kantar and IMRB.[69][70][71][72][73]
The lawsuit was dismissed in its entirety on 4 March 2013.[74]
WPP handles the accounts of many major oil companies.[75] Asked by Reuters to disclose their client list, WPP refused to do so.[75] WPP has defended its work forfossil fuel companies.[75] Lawsuits have alleged that four of WPP's advertisement campaigns for fossil fuel companies have been misleading or entailedgreenwashing.[75]
WPP has been fined on three occasions by theMinistry of Information and Communications for advertising products onYouTube andFacebook in a manner which breached Vietnam's strict laws on cross-border advertising.[76] The legislation is designed to combat offensive material which is intended to damage theCommunist Party of Vietnam and theGovernment of Vietnam.[77] WPP had committed various advertising violations, including inserting advertisements into intervals in the Chinese drama seriesFlight to You which depicted the disputedU-shaped line.[78]
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