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Advertising giant WPP to cut £500m in costs in radical overhaul
Advertising giant WPP to cut £500m in costs in radical overhaul
James Warrington
Thu, February 26, 2026 at 5:48 PM GMT+9 2 min read
In this article:
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Cindy Rose, who took over WPP in September, is seeking to turn company around after a period of declining sales and client losses - Jason Alden/Bloomberg
WPP plans to cut £500m in costs as part of a major overhaul unveiled by the advertising giant’s new boss.
The London-listed media group said it aimed to achieve the savings target by 2028 by selling some of its businesses and consolidating its sprawling operations into four key pillars.
The savings will be reinvested in high-growth areas such as AI.
As part of the shake-up, WPP will restructure hundreds of ad agencies into four units: creative, media, production and the newly formed enterprise solutions.
WPP, which owns agencies including Ogilvy and Grey, did not say what impact the overhaul would have on staff numbers. The company has already been reducing headcount, cutting around 7,000 jobs last August.
Cindy Rose, the former Microsoft executive who took over the top job at WPP in September, is seeking to turn the advertising behemoth around after a torrid period of declining sales and major client losses.
WPP’s shares have slumped 65pc in the last year to their lowest level since 1998, while the company has lost its crown as the world’s largest advertising company by revenue to French rival Publicis.
Ms Rose said WPP was an “extraordinary company” but admitted its performance was “just not where it needs to be”.
She added: “Our recent underperformance has been driven by excessive organisational complexity, a lack of an integrated operating model and inconsistent strategic execution.
“While disappointing, I see huge potential as these issues are all within our power to fix and we’re already making great progress.”
WPP’s revenue less pass-through costs fell by 5.4pc last year to £11.4bn, with headline operating profit falling by more than a fifth to £1.3bn.
Ms Rose hailed improvement in winning new business but said revenue will continue to shrink in the first half of this year.
The simplification plans echo the strategy pursued by Ms Rose’s predecessor, Mark Read, who oversaw a major slimming down of the holding group’s network of agencies as it adapted to the growth of digital advertising rivals such as Facebook and Google.
But WPP and its rivals are now contending with a fresh threat from AI, which threatens to further upend the traditional agency model.
The company is planning to invest around £300m each year in WPP Open, its AI marketing tool that allows clients to create their own campaigns.
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