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Voyage EdgeISABELLA'S ISLAYApril 23, 20262 min readAd-free
Publicis Won 2x More Pitches Than WPP or Omnicom in H1 2025
The Paris-based holding company widened its lead while rivals stumbled through integration and retrenchment.
Voyage Edge deskVoyage Edge · Huang GoodmanSource: Ad Age ↗
In plain words
Publicis's **2x** pitch-win lead in H1 2025 positions it as the only scaled growth story in holding companies before WPP and Omnicom report Q2.
67
major pitches valued above
$5 million
in annual billings during the six-month period
34
for WPP and
32
for Omnicom
Publicis Groupe won twice as many new business pitches as WPP or Omnicom in the first half of 2025, according to the holding company's H1 performance report released this week. The figure marks the widest competitive gap in pitch-win volume between the Big Three since COMvergence began tracking holding-company new business in 2017.
Publicis closed 67 major pitches valued above $5 million in annual billings during the six-month period, compared to 34 for WPP and 32 for Omnicom, per data shared with trade press. The wins span categories including automotive, financial services, and luxury hospitality, with notable additions from three Asia-Pacific heritage hotel groups and a European airline consolidating its media and creative duties. WPP posted its slowest H1 pitch velocity since 2020, while Omnicom's numbers reflect distraction costs tied to its pending $30 billion IPG merger, expected to close in Q3 2025.
The divergence matters because pitch-win rates are a six-to-nine-month leading indicator of organic growth. Publicis has converted H1 momentum into revenue expansion for eleven consecutive quarters, while WPP has posted flat-to-negative organic growth in four of the past six. Single-family offices and sovereign wealth funds allocating to advertising-services platforms now treat Publicis as the sole scaled growth story in a sector otherwise defined by cost extraction. The company's Epsilon data spine and Sapient consulting layer allow it to pitch integrated transformation programs that pure creative shops cannot match, particularly in luxury and travel verticals where first-party data infrastructure is becoming table stakes.
Operators should watch three follow-on events. First, WPP's Q2 earnings call in late July, where management will either acknowledge the pitch-rate gap or dismiss it as timing noise. Second, the Omnicom-IPG integration roadmap expected in August, which will clarify whether the combined entity prioritizes pitch offense or back-office rationalization through year-end. Third, Publicis's investor day in September, where the company is expected to formalize a 2026 organic growth guidance range that could widen the valuation gap with peers.
The last holding company to sustain a 2x pitch-win advantage over rivals for two consecutive halves was Omnicom in 2018, which led to a 340-basis-point outperformance in organic growth the following year.
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