美女免费一级视频在线观看

Arthur Sadoun has said Publicis Groupe is in a “strong” position for the rest of the year, thanks to an estimated $2 billion of new client wins in Q1, despite the fact that he conceded some clients “could” cut budgets because of the uncertainty caused by new U.S. trade tariffs.

Sadoun, chief executive of the world’s biggest agency group, was in a bullish mood as he contrasted the revenue performance of Publicis, which was up 4.9% in Q1, with his main peers in the wider agency sector, which, he predicted, would likely be negative overall when they report in the coming days and weeks. MSL is Publicis’ primary PR network in the U.S. and globally. 

Publicis, like its rivals, has seen its stock price decline since the start of 2025 because investor confidence in agency groups has waned, even before President Donald Trump introduced tariffs at the start of April, but Sadoun said some analysts were too “negative” about advertising and marketing services.

“We belong to an industry that is in a growing market. Let’s stop saying that it is a market that is declining,” Sadoun told Campaign, noting that the overall ad market has been growing faster than the global economy for the past four years. (Campaign is PRWeek’s sister business media outlet at Haymarket Media). 

Investors should understand that Publicis, in particular, has new capabilities and a changing revenue mix to keep growing, according to Sadoun, who is sticking to his annual growth forecast of 4% to 5% in 2025. 

“Stop always being negative about our industry. It’s a growing industry with less competitors,” he said, referring to the impending Omnicom-IPG merger and how the market will move from a “big four” to a “big three” with Publicis and WPP.

Sadoun said he was focused on a range of growth areas, including advanced TV, retail media, influencer marketing and CRM. He also played down how rivals are talking about doing more in principal-based media-buying, which involves an agency acting as principal and selling media on to clients at a premium. 

He maintained Publicis is not the largest player in principal media and said it accounts for 1% of its U.S. revenue: “I am a bit tired about this idea that the future of the industry is principal media. I don’t think it is. I think that if you don’t invest in new sources of growth for our clients and new sources of innovation, the problem [in terms of agencies being able to increase revenue] is going to be the same.”

Sadoun spoke to Campaign from Chicago, where he presented Q1 results to the Paris stock market.

What stood out in Q1, because it would appear to be predictable in terms of your revenue performance, although you won a lot of new business and made a lot of acquisitions?

If you look at our performance, there are three things that I would consider were not as expected: first, taking into consideration the macro-difficulties, at the moment, being above expectations [in terms of organic revenue growth] is pretty significant. Second, given the level of uncertainty today, being able to reaffirm [full-year] guidance thanks to what has been a record new business quarter is strong. Third, when you look at what is coming [in terms of the impact of U.S. tariffs], hopefully we are going to make a good case that we have never been stronger to help our clients, of course, in good times, but particularly in those challenging times, which again is related to our new-business wins in this quarter.

We are growing at almost double-digit [9.4%] when you look at net revenue [including acquisitions] and 5% roughly when you look at organic growth, with the consensus at 4.5% [in terms of what analysts had predicted for Publicis in Q1]. What I don’t think the market is expecting is that we, as Publicis, are actually accelerating on a five-year basis because our CAGR [compound annual growth rate] was at 4.5% [up until now]. But there is definitely a slowdown when you look at the consensus [forecast] for our three other peers [Omnicom, IPG and WPP, which have not yet reported Q1 results]. The difference of momentum [between Publicis versus the wider agency holding company sector] is continuing to accelerate versus the previous year.

We don’t comment on new business [when it comes to specific clients] but we have 12 material wins that have been in the press in Q1. That means when you look at what JPMorgan reported [in its agency rankings], our net new business is at $2 billion and the second player is at $200 million and the rest of the industry is negative. Where this makes a big difference is that it allows us to go to the [stock] market and say we are very strong for the rest of the year, whatever the level of uncertainty. We don’t have a back-loaded H2. Q2 is going to be fine and H2 is going to be fine, too.

The last point is that we have continued to double down on bolt-on acquisitions. We spent roughly €500 million [£427 million] just in one quarter, after spending €1.2 billion last year, which means that in the last 15 months we spent €1.7 billion. 

So, where you’re right, it’s another quarter of above expectations, outperforming our peers – you can say business as usual – but in a context that is really different.

What has been the impact of tariffs on client sentiment?

We need to distinguish what has happened so far, including Q1, and what could come after Q1 because it’s a very different dynamic. If you look at the client mood, it’s very important that you separate capex [capital expenditure] from opex [operating expenditure]. When you look at capex, which is everything to do with long-term investments, we can see that clients have been taking a wait-and-see attitude in the last two years – you have seen this with Accenture and the consulting firms – and this is actually accelerating in Q1. And until there is more clarity, this wait-and-see attitude will continue.

What is interesting is when you look at opex, which is marketing investments, so far, our clients have been continuing to invest because they know that they have to win market share [versus rivals] and, actually, when you look at Q1, March was the strongest month of the quarter.

Now let’s be clear, the level of uncertainty has been increasing by the day. There could – and I say could on purpose – be budget reductions across some industries for the rest of the year. That’s why our ability to have so many material wins in Q1 and being able to offset any kind of [potential] cuts we can see in the future is so important for us [in terms of sticking to its full-year forecast].

Just to close on that point: our clients went through COVD, went through the [Ukraine] war, went through inflation, so they know how to manage uncertainty. They are used to managing uncertainty and they know if they reduce too much spend, they are going to reduce market share, and it’s going to be hard to win back market share.

You say you don’t talk about clients but we have reported that Publicis won Coca-Cola, Santander, LinkedIn, Monzo and others. Has there been any particular reason why you’ve been winning business?

The reason why we have been so successful with an important number of those brands is because we started to engage with them during our closed-door sessions in Cannes [at the Lions festival in June 2024], where they have seen we are using our data, our technology and our AI in the service of their business.

So maybe your rivals have been using Cannes wrong. Publicis Conseil won agency of the year in 2024 but it sounds like you were using the festival as a new business exercise.

No. We use Cannes for what we think it is, what we think it has become. Twenty years ago, Cannes was a creative festival, and, by the way, I was CEO of an agency [TBWA] that was agency of the year four years in a row. Now Cannes still has a creative festival, but it has become a place for innovation in marketing. It used to be “What is the next big thing in creativity?” Now it’s “What is the next big thing in marketing?”

Staying on the subject of new business, has Publicis seen any indirect benefit from the Omnicom-IPG deal? Is what you describe as the “shrinking competitive landscape” already affecting client behavior in pitches or too soon to say?

Yes, a lot is happening on the talent and client front. But as the race has started, I won’t say more for now.

You do seem to have been quite aggressive in winning a number of pieces of business that have not come up for open review – for example, winning Coca-Cola’s U.S. media from WPP in a closed review and taking Pfizer’s global creative off IPG without a pitch last year. How much is that a part of your philosophy in hunting for new business?

We are obsessed about differentiation and demonstrating that our model is truly different compared to our peers. And it is. We have invested €12 billion in data and technology [acquisitions] where our competitors have roughly spent the same in share buybacks over the same 10-year period. We have built a “Power of One” model that is seamless in every country that doesn’t exist anywhere else. And we have a management team that has been in place roughly for the last seven years, that is at the heart of our transformation and that is there for the next decade.

So when you take our capabilities, our model and our management team, you understand why we believe we are within a “Category of One” and where we are effectively positioned to say to our clients: “If you want to work with us, we are very different and what we can bring is difference.” Sometimes they are interested, and sometimes they are not. But when they are, the choice they have to make is not between us and one of our peers; it is between a new model with us and what they could do with our peers.

Getting back to the geopolitical situation with tariffs, we have seen stock markets tumble and Publicis’ own share price has dropped close to 20% since the start of the year. How much is the volatility having an economic impact?

So far, the stock market has not yet had any economic impact on our clients. We see this yo-yo impact on the stock market but it doesn’t have any economic impact – for the moment. What is certain is that if we want to avoid a crisis that can touch the entire industry, we’re going to need greater stability and clarity very fast. But so far, it is too early to come to a conclusion [about the impact]. We should take what is happening at the stock market for what it is, which is a huge level of uncertainty that is impacting everyone’s [stock price] value, but not having an impact on the economy overall or at least not on our relationship with clients.

And what about when the European Commission says that it could retaliate against U.S. tariffs on goods by introducing some kind of tariff on advertising services for U.S. tech companies?

It’s way too early to draw any conclusion. If I may, exactly as we did for COVID, we are not trying to manage what is not manageable. What we are focusing on is what we can bring to our clients in this time of uncertainty. What is interesting about Publicis is that we have never been stronger while the economy has been challenged so much, and so it’s opened up a big opportunity for us to make sure – that’s why I’m in Chicago – we are closer than ever to our clients, to truly show them that we can find the right sources of growth, that we can maximise their spend, that we can measure what they are doing, and that we will be there for them in such an uncertain and challenging time.

Let’s not try to manage what is not manageable. Hopefully things will settle when we meet again at the Q2 [results] and I will be able to tell you what impact it could have for the rest of the year. What I can tell you now is that whatever happens, we will deliver the 4%.

This story first appeared on Campaign UK.