WPP

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WPP’s 2001 revenues were $5791m: Advertising accounted for 46%; specialist communications, 27%; info and consultancy, 15%; and public relations and affairs, 12.3%. Including associates, the Group had over 65,000 full-time people in over 1,400 offices in 103 countries at the end of 2001. In 2001 WPP worked for over 300 of the Fortune Global 500 companies and over half of the Nasdaq 100. WPP serviced 330 national or multi-national clients in three or more disciplines and over 150 clients in four disciplines. Globally, WPP worked with over 100 clients in six or more countries (WPP, 2001, p. 2).

introduction

The global WPP group encompasses the J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy & Mather, Tempus, Grey Global and Young & Rubicam advertising agencies. The conglomerate also includes public relations, media planning and buying, marketing and research services through Hill & Knowlton, Burson-Marsteller, MindShare and The Kantar Group. The corporate site is here.

evolution of the group

WPP czar Martin Sorrell was the 'third brother' at Saatchi & Saatchi (now part of Publicis) from 1975 to 1986 before acquiring UK shopping cart manufacturer Wire & Plastic Products (WPP). He used WPP as a vehicle for acquiring 'below-the-line' advertising-related businesses.

In 1987 he made a successful US$566m hostile bid for the venerable J. Walter Thompson. Two years later he expanded the group through the US$825m purchase of the equally prestigious Ogilvy & Mather, despite opposition from ad icon David Ogilvy (1911-1999).

In 2003 WPP successfully bid for the ailing Cordiant group, acquired for a mere US$17 million (plus assumption of debts). It acquired Grey Global in 2004 with cash and shares worth just over US$1.3bn (£720m). As of 2000 Grey had sales of US$1,247 million and earnings of US$19 million.Source [1]

shape

An indication of WPP's shape and extent is provided here.

Y&R

The group includes Madison Avenue agency Young & Rubicam, co-founded by Raymond Rubicam (1892-1978) and John Orr Young in 1923.

O&M

David Ogilvy (famous for quips such as "The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife") founded New York-based agency Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather in 1948 after entering the industry at age 38. The name changed to Ogilvy Benson & Mather in 1953, became Ogilvy & Mather International in 1965 through a merger with Ogilvy's original backers London agency Mather & Crowther, and was renamed Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide in the mid-80s before being put into Mr Sorrell's shopping cart.

Further reading

For O&M there are entertaining accounts in Ogilvy on Advertising (New York: Crown 1983), Confessions of an Advertising Man (New York: Atheneum 1963) and Blood, Brains & Beer: the Autobiography of David Ogilvy (New York: Wiley 1997) by David Ogilvy.

For a somewhat jaundiced view of JWT see Richard Morgan's J Walter Takeover: From Divine Right to Common Stock (Homewood: Dow Jones-Irwin 1991). For Wunderman see Being Direct (New York: Random 1996), a richly anecdotal memoir by Lester Wunderman (1920- ).

H&K is disussed in The Voice of Business: Hill & Knowlton and postwar public relations (Chapel Hill: Uni of North Carolina Press 1998) by Karen Miller and the more tendentious Power House: Robert Keith Gray & the selling of access and influence in Washington (New York: St Martins 1992) by Susan Trento.


Subsidiaries

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