WPP Echoes Other Agency Giants Reporting Ad Spending Remains Resilient.

The last of the big ad agency conglomerates has weighed in on the advertising market, and the picture it paints looks a lot like what its three counterparts have painted in recent weeks. WPP CEO Mark Read, whose agency includes media buying shop GroupM, said Friday that they have not experienced any cuts in spending by their clients.

“This is a more challenging environment with tariff uncertainty—it will undoubtedly impact our clients in where and how they prioritize their margins and investments in advertising and promotion,” Read said. “At this point, we haven’t seen any significant change in spending patterns.”

Read told analysts on the company’s earnings call that even though budgets are holding, it is fair to say that 2025 has become a “more challenging” environment for business directly tied to changes in U.S. tariff policy.

“We’re absolutely seeing much greater economic uncertainty impacting business and consumer confidence,” Read said. WPP’s top 25 clients increased their marketing spending 2.5% during the first quarter, and the top clients upped spending by an even stronger 4.6%. But he said the impact will be “asymmetric” with higher prices varying client to client and predicted there will not be any pullback in spending until there is clarity on the tariff’s impact. “We have not yet seen any major stepdown in spending patterns from this, at the same time we have to be vigilant and agile,” he told investors.

U.K-based WPP total revenue declined 2.7% during the first quarter, although its North American business was flat year-to-year. WPP also aid that its GroupM media business increased in North America during the quarter. CFO Joanne Wilson said automotive, tech and healthcare ad spending all were stronger in North America during the first quarter.

The comments from WPP echoes much of what executives at fellow ad giants Interpublic Group, Omnicom, Publicis and Havas have all told to investors during the past several weeks. Each said that while their clients have expressed a lot more concern about which way the business climate was turned, they also said that it has been more characterized by hand-wringing that ax-swinging toward media budgets.

Several executives compared the current climate to the early days of the pandemic. The CEOs said not only are they not seeing similar budget impacts in 2025, but what they went through during the past several years has been prepared make marketing adjustments.

Media analyst Michael Nathanson says his takeaway from the parade of advertising executives is that the message is “it’s business as usual” despite growing macroeconomic uncertainty. “The media market remains steady, with no deviation from existing trends, and key leading indicators like project spend continue to flash green—well at least, not red,” he tells MoffettNathanson clients in a research note.