Author Archives

In less than a month, the UK’s new chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will unveil her first budget and Green Square director Tony Walford says agency owners should brace themselves for tax changes that could hit them where it hurts. It’s hard to overlook that Rachel Reeves, the UK’s new chancellor of the exchequer, is preparing the […]

As holding companies invest millions in building and acquiring complex AI tools, Publicis’s acquisition of long-established shopper marketing specialist Mars United Commerce makes ‘perfect sense,’ says analyst. Launched in 1973 by shopper marketing pioneer Marilyn Barnett, Mars United Commerce today employs over 1,000 people across 14 global offices and leverages its suite of commerce solutions […]

Sir Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital and Tim Dyson’s Next 15 both announced H1 figures this week and neither made particularly palatable reading for shareholders or staff. Green Square’s Barry Dudley offers some analytical morsels around these latest numbers. Two businesses with very different operating models – Next 15 is decentralized, empowering the business units, while […]

Green Square’s Barry Dudley analyses how Adam&Eve co-founders James Murphy and David Golding have done it again as they sell NCA to WPP. On February 11, 2020, three people incorporated a company, each holding one of the three shares that made up the whole of the issued share capital. Just one month later, on March […]

Marginal organic growth in Dentsu’s H2 results masks a business that may just be regaining some momentum, suggests Green Square’s Barry Dudley as he looks at the Japanese holding company’s latest numbers. At first sight, an organic growth in revenue of 0.2% in Q2 seems an odd thing to lead your results announcement with. Or […]

The latest financial updates again show the full range of fortunes being experienced across the major marketing groups, as Green Square’s Barry Dudley explains. On today’s WPP results call, Mark Read, the CEO, used words such as “satisfactory” and “firm.” And along with CFO Joanne Wilson, the term “headwinds” cropped up pretty often. So, it […]

Holding company results have been coming thick and fast – some good, most not so. Green Square’s Barry Dudley analyzes the latest results from IPG and Havas. After some strong results from Publicis, which included the guidance for full-year organic revenue growth being lifted from 4-5% up to 5-6%, we saw 5.2% organic growth in […]

The bullish holding company chief tells The Drum why he’s confident its model can withstand outside economic and political “pressures” and deliver better-than-expected growth this year. “Against all odds” is the well-rehearsed phrase Arthur Sadoun returns to time and again during our conversation about Publicis Groupe’s strong first-half financials and its correspondingly upgraded full-year forecast. […]

The advertising giant reported better-than-expected profits and revenues, reflecting a trend of increasing brand spend – despite high inflation – across the industry. Omnicom Group, the world’s second-largest advertising holding company (behind French titan Publicis), reported its second-quarter financial results Tuesday evening after trading closed. The results beat Wall Street estimates on both profit and […]