WPP's third quarter: production grows, creative shrinks, AI sits in between

WPP, one of the world's largest advertising groups, published its third quarter 2026 trading update on 29 October. Headline revenue grew slightly, but the measure the industry watches most closely, revenue less pass-through costs, fell again. Inside that number, the business lines moved in different directions: production grew, media returned to growth and creative fell further.

What happened

According to WPP, third-quarter revenue was £3,274 million, up 0.5% on a like-for-like basis. Revenue less pass-through costs, which strips out media and other costs passed on to clients, was £2,411 million, down 2.1% like-for-like.

By business line, WPP reported:

• WPP Production: up 2.5%
• WPP Media: up 0.3%, back to growth
• Global integrated agencies: down 2.1%
• WPP Creative: down 5.1%

By region, according to WPP, North America fell 1.8%, EMEA 1.7%, Asia-Pacific 4.3% and Latin America 1.2%. Revenue less pass-through costs from the group's top 25 clients fell 2.7%, which the company attributes to accounts lost the previous year. Automotive and healthcare clients grew; consumer goods, technology and retail clients spent less.

The group reiterated its full-year guidance of a 12% to 13% headline operating margin and expects the second half to decline by low to mid single digits. Chief executive Cindy Rose said the group is "on track to deliver phase one of Elevate28", its multi-year plan. According to PPC Land's account of the analyst call, client losses took around 600 basis points off growth this year, even though new business wins improved on 2025.

In the same update, WPP announced an expanded technology partnership with Kyndryl and said it had added 48 data partners to Open Intelligence, the data layer of its WPP Open platform. It described client demand for AI-enabled media, creative, production and enterprise work as healthy, without giving figures.

Why it matters

Large holding companies are a useful indicator of where marketing budgets are moving, because they serve many of the largest advertisers in every region. The split inside WPP's quarter shows a pattern that other groups have also described this year: clients keep paying to produce more content, in more formats, for more channels, while spending on traditional creative work is under pressure.

Production is the part of the business where AI tools change unit costs most directly. Generating and adapting thousands of assets, versions and languages is work that scales with technology, and it is growing. Creative strategy and brand ideas remain essential, but clients are buying them in different ways, and often in smaller packages.

The data partnerships point in the same direction. Holding companies are building their own platforms and connecting them to external data and technology providers, so that planning, production and measurement run in one place.

What it means for agencies and software vendors

For independent and specialist agencies, the figures suggest where demand is moving:

• Production at scale is a growth line. Agencies that can produce and adapt content efficiently, with AI in the workflow and clear quality control, are working in the part of the market that is growing.
• Accounts move. When large groups lose and win major clients, those changes ripple through the network of smaller agencies, production studios and implementation partners that work alongside them. Account reviews are moments of opportunity for specialists.
• Platforms are becoming the product. Clients increasingly ask agencies which technology they bring, not only which people. Agencies without their own platform tend to compete on how well they implement and run the platforms their clients already use.

For software vendors, the update is a reminder that the largest agency groups now act as technology buyers and integrators. Adding 48 data partners in a quarter shows that holding company platforms are a distribution route in their own right, alongside direct sales and traditional channel partners. At the same time, most advertisers outside the top tier work with independent agencies, which choose and implement tools client by client. Vendors entering new countries usually need both routes: integration with the large platforms, and a network of independent agencies and integrators that can sell and implement the product locally.

WPP's next update, with full-year results and guidance for 2027, is expected in February.

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