The news: Holding company WPP has reorganized its commerce experts into a single team known as WPP Commerce. The restructuring is the first move WPP has made in its two-year turnaround plan as it looks to bounce back from a string of client and revenue losses.

• Brent Taylor, now the global CEO of WPP Commerce, told Adweek that the holdco’s goal with this initiative is to concentrate the company’s commerce capabilities in a single property that covers WPP’s core business parts: Creative, media, production, and enterprise solutions.
• WPP Commerce will ideally encourage the company’s clients to combine retail and media spending into a single budget.
• WPP Commerce is part of CEO Cindy Rose’s plan, known internally as Elevate28, to pave a positive path forward for the holdco and achieve growth in 2028. The company noted that the model has so far helped WPP gain new business wins.

Zooming out: WPP is betting on retail media, which is seeing consistent ad spending growth, as a core recovery opportunity. But while the Commerce model’s test results with companies like Unilever have reportedly been successful, competitors are also making major moves in retail media.

• Publicis has taken several retail clients from WPP’s roster, winning commerce-centric accounts like Mars and Coca-Cola’s North American media business. It’s also acquired retail-specialized companies like CitrusAd and Epsilon.
• Omnicom recently launched a new commerce practice following its acquisition of IPG, moving shopper marketing agency TPN into Flywheel, its digital commerce unit.

And while pushing into commerce could be profitable, WPP needs to advance its turnaround plan if it wants to reach the scale of new business wins that the likes of Publicis have. Returning to growth means WPP will likely have to make significant cost cuts, which could translate to consolidated leadership and hefty layoffs.

Implications for agencies: Commerce and retail media are promising growth areas, but differentiating offerings from what competitors are already doing will be critical.

WPP specifically still needs to overcome several hurdles to achieve its 2028 goal. Proving that its AI investments are on equal footing with its competitors, significantly cutting costs without eliminating essential talent, and showing that WPP Commerce can drive measurable business wins will determine the company’s future.

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