London-listed WPP to lose world promoting crown to French rival

France’s Publicis Groupe is on track to surpass London-listed WPP as the world’s largest advertising agency by the end of 2024, according to broker estimates.

Publicis recorded €10.1billion (£8.4billion) in turnover for the first nine months of 2024, while Ogilvy and Wavemaker owner WPP has made €9.8billion. 

Consensus estimates by financial research platform Visible Alpha expects the firm to score sales of €13.9billion this year, compared to €13.5billion for WPP. 

It will be the first time a French holding company has been the number one ad business and comes two years before Publicis celebrates its 100th anniversary.

Headquartered on Paris’s iconic Champs-Elysées, Publicis is the parent company of British ad agencies Bartle Bogle Hegarty and Saatchi & Saatchi.

It also organises the annual VIVA Technology conference dedicated to startups, whose speakers at the latest edition included Elon Musk, LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault, and former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt.

Among the group’s extensive client roster are French brands Renault, Cartier, and supermarket chain Carrefour, as well as American giants Netflix, Burger King, and Walmart.

Rapper’s delight: Snoop Dogg appears in ‘The Wishes.’ a film announcing that Publicis is the world largest advertising agency

The group has celebrated its place at the top of the advertising world with a short video featuring its chief executive with musician – and star of the Paris Olympics – Snoop Dogg. 

Publicis was founded in 1926 by Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, a furniture salesman widely credited with introducing radio advertising to France.

After World War II, when he fought in the French Resistance, he rebuilt the company by striking deals with big corporate names like Shell, Colgate-Palmolive, and Sopad-Nestlé, and started France’s first opinion polls. 

Under his successor, Maurice Levy, Publicis joined WPP, Omnicom and Interpublic as one of the ‘Big Four’ advertising agencies when it bought Bcom3 in 2002 for $3billion.

Publicis attempted a $35billion merger with US-based Omnicom early last decade that would have made the expanded firm the world’s largest advertising business.

However, the deal fell through due to tax and legal issues, opposition from China’s antitrust regulator, and disagreements over who would hold key leadership positions.

During the turmoil, the two firms lost many of their prominent clients to rivals, with WPP gaining Vodafone, Marks & Spencer, GlaxoSmithKline and Comparethemarket.

Under Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP became the world’s number-one advertising agency by relentlessly acquiring smaller companies and extending its reach into developing markets.

In its last annual results, Publicis boosted its organic net revenues by 6.3 per cent thanks to better-than-expected trading towards the end of the period.

Total net turnover rose by 4.2 per cent to €13.1billion, helped by a double-digit percentage rise in Europe and a strong performance in North America, its largest market by sales.