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WPP remains in the red in the third quarter 2026, but shows slower shrinkage. Following the official Q3 statement from 29 October, revenue excluding pass-through costs fell like-for-like by 2,1 percent year on year. WPP Media returned to narrow growth with plus 0,3 percent, while WPP Creative lost 5,1 percent. CEO Cindy Rose sees early progress in the group restructuring.
For marketing teams, the shift within the agency holding is more important than the positive headline on stabilisation: Media and Production are holding up better than traditional creative services, while WPP is bundling AI, data and campaign execution more tightly into WPP Open. A concrete new element is WPP's answer to Apple's Safari blocks for advertising IDs: it is relying on the already integrated data platform InfoSum.
Q3 figures: Media grows slightly, Creative continues to lose ground
In the third quarter WPP generated 3,274 billion pounds in revenue (plus 0,5 percent like-for-like). After deducting pass-through costs, 2,411 billion pounds remained, 2,1 percent less than a year earlier. The difference: the larger revenue figure includes pass-through costs, while the second measures the agency business after deducting them.
Operating performance is split: WPP Media +0,3 percent, WPP Production +2,5 percent, WPP Creative −5,1 percent, each on revenue excluding pass-through costs on a like-for-like basis. For the first nine months, adjusted revenue remains behind at minus 3,9 percent. WPP confirms its full-year margin guidance of 12 to 13 percent and still expects revenue excluding pass-through costs to decline by a low to mid single-digit percentage in the second half.
Among the accounts won or retained in the quarter, WPP names Coca-Cola, DoorDash, Nestlé, Uber and Waymo, among others. The DoorDash account is also interesting for marketers because of the announced Instacart acquisition and its retail media dimension. The new accounts are now meant to strengthen primarily the business of WPP Media and the integrated units.
Elevate28 turns the holding into a more integrated company
With Elevate28, WPP wants to simplify its previously complex holding structure. The four core areas are called WPP Media, WPP Creative, WPP Production and WPP Enterprise Solutions. In the official half-year figures, WPP explains that the basic organisational structure has now been implemented.
The figures explain the pressure behind the restructuring: in the first half 2026, revenue came to 6,373 billion pounds, 4,4 percent below the previous year. Revenue excluding pass-through costs, the more meaningful measure for agencies, fell like-for-like by 4,7 percent. In Germany, this figure was 4,7 percent below the previous year in the second quarter.
The direction within the quarter is positive: WPP Media improved to minus 2,8 percent like-for-like in the second quarter. WPP also cites new or expanded mandates from Estée Lauder, Henkel and Wendy's, among others, as well as retained mandates such as Deutsche Bahn in Germany.
WPP Open moves from an internal tool to a product for clients
The technological core of the restructuring is WPP Open. The platform connects data, AI agents, creative production and media activation. In the second quarter, WPP additionally expanded it with technologies from Google, Meta and AWS.
With WPP Open Pro, the group goes one step further: brands can partly handle strategy, content production and publishing themselves via a shared AI interface. This is strategically important because an agency holding is no longer just selling services, but moving part of its way of working directly into marketing teams as software.
This shift fits the broader trend in media buying. Agencies are already building cost audits for AI agents in media buying, while platforms such as The Trade Desk with Kokai Zuma are automating more and more campaign decisions.
Safari 27 makes InfoSum a strategic bet
In the quarterly call on 29 October 2026, WPP CEO Cindy Rose was asked about Apple's new blocks for identity service providers. Her answer: WPP's own data solution is only minimally affected, because the company does not rely exclusively on matching personal advertising IDs. Instead, the company works with InfoSum, a data collaboration platform integrated into WPP Open, using its own data and signals from a partner network of, according to Rose, almost 400 companies. Digiday documented the statements on 30 October.
The technical background matters for publishers and advertisers: Apple's WebKit team explained on 19 October that Safari in versions 27 blocks network access to certain identity resolution infrastructures. These systems try to recognise users across multiple websites based on email addresses. Apple already prevents the relevant connections at the domain level.
InfoSum works differently: customer data is meant to stay in separate environments; companies can link it to form audiences and analyses without exchanging complete datasets centrally. WPP had acquired InfoSum in April 2025 and later positioned the approach as "Intelligence Beyond Identity" in WPP Open.
For brands, this shifts the investment question: instead of investing exclusively in browser recognition, own customer data, clear usage rights, partner agreements and controlled data environments become more important building blocks for targeting and measurement. WPP promises a robust foundation for AI models and media planning from this. Whether it works better economically in everyday use than alternative data architectures must be shown by campaign and measurement data.
Srocket has already covered the technical side in the article Safari 27: Apple explains the new adtech blocks. The current WPP statement adds to this picture a concrete strategic decision by one of the largest agency groups.
Outcome-based pay remains the exception so far
In parallel, WPP is trying to make its business model less dependent on billable hours. According to Digiday, the Jaguar Land Rover account is so far considered the most important example of an outcome-based pay model. Rose herself said in August that a broader switch would take several years.
This is a central point for the agency industry: if AI accelerates production, analysis and media workflows, a pure time-and-materials model becomes harder to justify economically. Outcome-based or technology-driven fees could therefore become more important, but only if performance and attribution can be measured cleanly.
The Safari debate shows why WPP thinks data architecture, AI automation and outcome-based pay together: campaigns must remain plannable and measurable even when browsers provide fewer user identifiers.
What marketers should take away
Even after the quarterly figures of 29 October, WPP is not yet permanently on a growth path. The slower downward movement shows progress, but the weak creative division and the still declining revenue excluding pass-through costs continue to show risks. The group is cutting costs, integrating units and at the same time investing in its data and AI platform. The central question is whether this will actually lead to 2027 profitable growth.
For marketing teams, a market is emerging in which large agencies bundle consulting, data, media and AI software more closely. At the same time, clients have more options to carry out parts of the work themselves. The central question is thus shifting from "Which agency produces this?" increasingly to "Which platform, data base and pay logic steers the process?"