WPP, in the middle of slashing costs, shedding jobs and restructuring, had its best month for new business in January, much of it on the media side, for four years.
And the December quarter of 2025 was the group's strongest for net new business since 2020, according to JP Morgan rankings.
According to WPP's new CEO, Cindy Rose, new business already secured in 2026 to February exceeded the total impact of wins for the whole of 2025.
Those wins include the UK Government's lead media account, Reckitt and Henkel media in Europe, Norwegian Cruise Line global media and the Jaguar Land Rover integrated mandate.
“So while the turnaround of our business will take time, our momentum is undeniable,” she told analysts in a briefing on the company's new strategy.
“And these wins give me huge confidence that we are firmly on the right path. My team is united, committed and hungry to win.”
WPP is seeking a return to growth, expected sometime in 2027, after a series of client losses and negative growth.
The advertising group, once the world’s largest, last week posted full year 2025 revenue of £13.55 billion, down 8.1% on a reported basis and down 3.6% like-for-like.
In 2025, the major negative impact on WPP for both for the full year and for the December quarter was the impact of previous client losses, whose numbers deteriorated as red ink grew.
Balanced against this was the positive impact of new business wins in 2024 and 2025.
However, CFO Joanne Wilson said the aggregate level of in-year wins was lower than expected and significantly below the run rate of the past few years.
“This was in part because of a lower win rate, but in EMEA, it was because of a lower level of aggregate new business activity,” Wilson said.
“Industry estimates are that global pitch activity was down double digits in the year.”
The impact of new business performance in the December quarter -- Reckitt, Henkel, the UK government, Pizza Hut, NCL and JLR -- will take time to take time to ramp up, and make a difference to revenue numbers.
“We expect the overall net new business headwind to sustain into the first half of 2026, " Wilson said.
She said existing clients have been more cautious with their spend, with the impact most strongly across the CPG, auto and the tech and digital services sectors.
It weighed most heavily on Ogilvy.
The current March quarter is expected to record the weakest like-for-like growth for the current for the year.
WPP is giving guidance of like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs down mid- to high single digits in the first half of 2026 with an improving trajectory in the second half.
The impact of jobs cutting will help the bottom line.
“We will benefit from the annualised impact of cost actions, which were taken in 2025, alongside a part year benefit from the cost initiatives we are implementing as part of our new strategy.
“We also expect a lower impact from headline severance costs.”
Staff now number 99,000 after an 8% cut last year. More jobs are expected to go this year with GBP 500 million in savings planned.
Cindy Rose is working to a plan, Elevate28, to get WPP back to growth.
“In the near term, our focus will be on stabilising the business, and that means improving our net new business performance and our client retention,” she told analysts in a briefing.
“Net sales like-for-like is a lagging indicator, and that will take time to recover as we cycle through historic client losses.
“Now as we progress through the three years of our plan and we deliver strongly against the core growth building blocks … we anticipate a return to taking our fair share of the market.
“And in some areas and over time, we will seek to outperform the market.
“And to support this, we will unlock GBP 500 million of gross annual cost savings between now and 2028, enabling a reallocation of investment towards our growth drivers. And this will, in turn, support a rebuild of margins.”
She said strengthening the new business engine means championing a stronger winning mindset.
Part of that is a change to incentives, part rewarding for the company’s performance as a whole rather than solely on an individual agency basis.
“The next core priority for us, perhaps the most important of all, is to embed a high-performance culture to attract and retain the world's best talent, grounded in collaboration, client obsession, humility, accountability and a hunger to win,” Rose said.
“I know from experience that culture can be the biggest differentiator and competitive advantage of them all.
“Talented people choose to join companies and stay at companies that have strong cultures where they can thrive in their careers and be their authentic selves.”
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