Large agency combos are well-trod territory in promoting, but WPP’s merger of VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson into VML has still sparked lots of industry chatter. The move, first announced last fall and enforce in January, is viewed by some as an indication of the further dilution of individual agency brands — VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson were the products of past mergers — but by others as a vital way for WPP to further streamline its creative offerings, which have struggled with growth.
While WPP remains to be fighting for a turnaround, with revenue less pass-through costs dropping 3.6% in 2024’s first half and the corporate downgrading its full-year forecast, VML has some wind in its sails and has quickly picked up recent accounts, similar to Krispy Kreme. Losses stemming from WPP’s creative segment shrunk in essentially the most recent financial period, a gap-closing driven by VML, executives said. Today, the creative agency, communications firm Burson and media-buying giant GroupM cover 70% of WPP’s overall business.
VML Global CEO Jon Cook
Permission granted by VML
VML has also reeled in accolades during a difficult period for creativity, scoring 57 Lions awards on the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in June, including a Grand Prix. While VML has been through myriad changes over the many years, a few of its leadership has stayed consistent: Global CEO Jon Cook acted as chief executive of the unique VML within the ‘90s before spearheading VMLY&R and now the brand new entity that’s complemented by tech-forward Wunderman Thompson.
Marketing Dive spoke with Cook about his perceptions of the merger nearly one yr on, together with services he sees as essential for future agency success, including customer relationship management (CRM) and artificial intelligence (AI).
The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
MARKETING DIVE: We’re within the thick of H2 and approaching a yr since WPP announced the VML combination. How are you interested by maintaining momentum you’ve had coming out of events like Cannes Lions?
Jon Cook: The thing about Cannes or any big industry thing is you begin to understand how soon the following one comes up. To answer your query about momentum, it’s actually easier as a brand new company because Cannes — which is just considered one of many good industry moments — serves as an indicator which you can do it. It was motivational Kool-Aid at just the best time. Cannes got here literally six months into the brand new company. Things like Cannes force you to have your world together and give you the option to present great work. It’s easy to make use of as a motivator since it’s easy validation of what could be done.
You referred to VML as a “recent company.” I’m curious why you consider it in those terms.
Interestingly, we probably have more history than every other agency that’s ever walked the Earth. You have 100 years of J. Walter Thompson, 100 years of Young & Rubicam and the history of Wunderman, sort of the newborn of VML. I’ve just chosen to call it recent. The work that we did to launch VML was the sort of work you’d do for those who had a brand new company. The difference was you’re doing that at some scale. What agency does the world need in these years which might be to return?
We got to make selections about capability, positioning, talent and where we might show up on the planet. All of the choices you’d make for those who were launching an organization, we got to make. Given that, we earned the best to call this a brand new company. The difference between us and a startup is we got to do it with tens of hundreds of individuals at the identical time. But we actually needed to introduce ourselves to the world and to clients, though there’s familiarity.
I imagine lots of thought went into combining Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R to round each others’ capabilities out. Was there anything from integrating the 2 brands that you simply found surprising?
One thing that I knew could be great was the complementary nature of commerce. That was something I knew could be a fantastic accent to the brand creativity. I even have been pleasantly surprised about how big of a thirst and an ask there was for CRM and loyalty and how strong we’re in that. I even have to enrich what Wunderman Thompson was doing. From a CRM platform, they’d a world product and a part of the corporate called Marketing Automation Platform, or MAP. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much attention that’s gotten and its relevance to clients immediately. It’s been considered one of the larger things that’s been requested of us in the primary months [of VML]. It’s not a surprise that it will be good, but a surprise at how distinguished that’s been when it comes to the ask and the profit.
That’s something that Wunderman brought over. Was there any learning curve in getting everyone else aligned with that CRM function?
There’s a learning curve. I feel general creative agencies or brand agencies probably lump all things called loyalty or CRM into formal loyalty programs. The thing that’s been really eye-opening is how broad the definition of loyalty really is when it comes to the activity, even within the absence of a former loyalty and rewards program. The act of getting anyone to show allegiance to the brand through transactions, whether or not they be purchases or commitments, that expanse of the terminology has been an excellent education that the general company has really learned from.
In the marketing industry, different terminologies and phases come into your vernacular. Sometimes, that makes you are feeling like one thing replaces the opposite. I remember when CRM was a brand new term. It was all the fad, it was like AI. It’s not like [any of] that went away. It’s constructing blocks on era after era, not one era replacing the opposite. People consider us being on this AI era. AI just isn’t replacing those other eras. It’s harnessing and accelerating the eras we’ve been through.
AI is, for the broader WPP network, a giant investment focus [the network has committed over $300 million annually in the technology]. From the person agency perspective, how have you ever seen it most concretely impact your work? Because I do know there are firms which might be repositioning old tools as AI.
The investment wouldn’t must be that great if it was simply a matter of taking the prevailing tools and putting them in a portal for people to make use of. The actual spend starts to be in bespoke walled garden AI programs for our clients’ knowledge [and] constructing and learning inside that walled garden about a selected set of clients or a client’s industry.
We could easily, for a really low investment, harness ChatGPT and learn every part a couple of generic automotive company. If we wish to do this for a selected automotive company — [use] a mixture of confidential knowledge mixed with publicly available knowledge — that alone takes investment. Then to have the general public information meet the private information and to learn from that and have the AI built to make itself smarter in regards to the industry and the audiences, that’s a level of investment. An entire other level of investment is to have that information create the work or react to the work that we create. That’s when it gets really specific and strongest. It’s like a brain for a brand that’s getting hyper-smart just based on that information.
There’s a level of investment to then make an operating system for each agency and every client that touches that work. And then, there’s the extent of coaching needed for everyone involved in harnessing that recent weaponry. That’s where the cash actually starts to get spent. I’m using a generic example, but that’s an excellent view into how WPP is using that.
Has AI affected your hiring priorities or training programs in any respect?
We are training on AI and the right way to use all the WPP Open [operating system] toolset and any available tools from our partners. So at one level, yes. We’ve hired individuals for AI-particular roles which might be specific to using or constructing the toolset. Has it affected the final hiring at the corporate? I might say yes within the sense that you simply’re all the time searching for someone who’s relevant, forward-thinking and revolutionary in any position. Somebody doesn’t must have blind allegiance to an AI future to be hired at VML, but you could have to be anyone who’s open to learning and trying recent things. There are some highly talented and awarded individuals who are usually not those things.
Do you could have to be an AI expert or disciple that walks the Earth evangelizing AI? No. But the behavior of being open to vary and having a humorousness about technology, balanced with a respect for it — those could be traits that will aid you find your way into VML immediately.
A recent WPP earnings call discussed VML for instance of simpler and stronger business inside WPP, but that’s not the case for each agency throughout the network. How do you share what’s working as WPP tries to lift all ships?
We have so much forums for that. There’s a WPP executive team that I’m an element of. The spirit of collaboration could be very high immediately. I don’t just say that to be Pollyanna. When you get simpler and you could have fewer agencies and you could have higher people leading those agencies, the fellowship and the sharing could be very positive and open immediately. That’s accelerated because there are fewer agencies and every agency has loaded themselves with improbable leadership. You couldn’t all the time say that about WPP.
The scale and capability that’s been entrusted to us, and probably most significantly, the simplicity of the best way that we’ve brought capabilities together, it’s on [VML] to change into an agency representation of all that WPP has to supply. That doesn’t mean that VML does every part. We can go to market as VML and be a quite simple and very complete A to Z offering. But we may go to market because the portal to the perfect of WPP. Sometimes it’s easier for a client to experience that coming through one agency or culture. The relationships in WPP immediately are such that there’s a selflessness.
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