WPP Unifies Commerce Across Agencies Amid Market Shift

For years, the world's biggest advertising groups worked like loose federations. Each agency did its own thing, chased its own clients, and guarded its own turf. Holding companies like WPP sat above them collecting revenue but offering little operational coordination.

That model is cracking. And commerce is where the pressure is most acute.

WPP has launched WPP Commerce, a new practice that pulls together its creative commerce, retail media, shopper marketing, and content capabilities from across every agency it owns. The goal: one unified approach to helping clients sell things, not a patchwork of disconnected offerings from different parts of the group.

Commerce Has Overtaken TV for the First Time

The timing is not coincidental. Commerce advertising globally surpassed TV advertising revenue for the first time in 2025, reaching US$178.2 billion against TV's US$171.1 billion. Commerce now accounts for 15.6% of the total US$1.14 trillion spent on advertising worldwide.

This shift is structural. Retailers, banks, and travel companies have built advertising businesses that link ad exposure directly to a purchase. A shopper sees an ad while browsing Lazada and buys within seconds. That closed loop between seeing and buying is something television cannot replicate, and brands are redirecting budgets accordingly.

For WPP, this is also a competitive catch-up move. Publicis posted 5.9% organic growth in Q4 2025 while WPP trailed. Omnicom built commerce expertise through acquisitions. WPP needed a coherent answer.

Connection Without Consolidation

WPP is not merging agencies. The new practice does not dissolve agency brands or force talent to change employers. Ogilvy, VML, and GroupM keep their own structures and client relationships intact.

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What changes is the leadership layer above them. Brent Taylor, formerly CEO of WPP retail marketing agency Barrows, becomes global CEO of WPP Commerce. Samantha Bukowski, who has been leading GroupM's commerce media capabilities since 2019, takes on global president for both WPP Commerce and WPP Media. Manuel Borde, VML's global chief creative officer, adds a commerce creative leadership role.

The model is designed to coordinate expertise, not consolidate it. The people stay where they are, but a shared leadership team ensures clients get one strategy rather than competing agency proposals.

As Bukowski framed it: "Retail media is entering a new phase, shifting from a narrow focus on placements and proximity to purchase toward a broader, intelligence-driven role across the full marketing funnel."

Part of a Bigger Reset

WPP Commerce sits inside a larger transformation called Elevate28, announced by CEO Cindy Rose in February 2026. Her stated position: "WPP is no longer a holding company." The plan reorganizes WPP around four operating units and targets US$676 million in annualized cost savings by 2028.

Third-party recognition has arrived quickly. WPP received the highest possible scores across all 12 criteria in the Forrester Commerce Services Wave for Q1 2026. Whether that translates to client wins at scale is the real test.

The APAC Dimension

For Asian marketing leaders, this matters directly. APAC digital advertising spend reached approximately US$212 billion in 2025, up 8.6% year-on-year, projected to grow above 7% annually through 2030.

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APAC's commerce landscape was built differently. Marketplaces like Shopee, Lazada, and JD.com have long blended advertising with shopping in a single interface. Retail media is the default here, not a new concept. That makes the region a natural testing ground for WPP's unified approach.

Henkel's Bloo brand is already an early client, with WPP Media building a full-funnel commerce strategy connecting brand awareness to purchase conversion. Small example, but exactly the model WPP needs to prove at scale.

The holding company era is not over. But groups that cannot unify their commerce offering are running out of time.