IPG Signals Strong Ad Market.

It is unanimous. The head of Interpublic Group says, similar to three other big agency conglomerates, the ad market has not had any meaningful impact to the economic gyrations, tariffs and chatter about a possible recession.

“The media market has been steady thus far into April,” said CEO Philippe Krakowsky. “Existing trends are unchanged across all of the channels, whether that’s linear or digital, streaming or otherwise,” he said Thursday on the company’s quarterly earnings call. IPG’s roster includes media buying shops Mediabrands, Initiative, Magna, and The Martin Agency.

Krakowsky said clients are closely monitoring consumer sentiment as well as their own supply chains as each segment has different filters with which to look through. “The consumer has been resilient thus far,” he said, and that has kept ad spending on an even keel. “Are we seeing significant moves to different channels or different tactics, disciplines? Not at this point,” Krakowsky said. IPG did report a 3.6% decline in first quarter revenue, but that was caused by the loss of three large accounts at the end of last year.

Krakowsky said in periods of heightened uncertainty, his strategy has always been to stay close to clients. That has shown to him that many marketers appear to be in a phase of scenario planning, assessing the implications of possible changes to the flows of global commerce.

“We know that macro developments and their potential ramifications have moved front and center for all of us. The impact of this uncertainty is not yet clear, and the implications vary widely for our clients across industries and geographies,” Krakowsky said. “If the economy slows, where would we see it? We would see it in projects because they’re somewhat more discretionary. We might see it at digital spend. But at this point, everybody is very focused trying to understand when there will be some measure of clarity.”

The IPG assessment of the national ad market is consistent with what executives at Omnicom, Publicis and Havas have all shared in recent weeks. Each has said that clients are in a watch-and-wait posture, with no widespread retreats in their advertising spending. What may help is that President Trump appears to be backtracking on some of his tariff plans.

“We have not suffered any budget freeze or budget cuts for our main clients, at least for the time being, which is totally different from what happened during the COVID crisis,” Havas CFO/COO François Laroze said during an earnings call earlier this month.

If there is a downturn, media analyst Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson predicts the ad market will shrink 5.7% rather than grow 6.5% in 2025 — a potential swing of 11.5%. In a report to clients, MoffettNathanson says that if economic growth slows to 3% in 2025 and advertising intensity falls, about $45 billion could be lost in U.S. ad spend vs. current forecasts.