GroupM staff brace for major cull as WPP plots deep restructure

News 8 May 2025 - 3 min read

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GroupM staff have been told to brace for redundancies as the holdco collapses agency brands and prepares for a single P&L structure under WPP Media - the rebrand from GroupM is understood to be slated for an official announcement by the end of May. The move comes as it is outpaced by rivals that moved earlier and as the sector braces for AI disruption to start in earnest.

GroupM staff have been primed to expect rapid redundancies across the group as the WPP-owned media agency network prepares a wholesale restructure.

Australian staff yesterday received an early hours email telling them to tune into a global meeting the same day.

The missive outlined “restructuring” with efficiencies sought as AI is increasingly applied across the business.

While the scale of the cuts is yet to be clarified, redundancies across GroupM’s 40,000-strong global workforce are anticipated imminently as the holdco accelerates the consolidation of its brands – including GroupM itself.

As first reported by AdAge, GroupM is to be rebranded to WPP Media with roles and individual brands further streamlined, with CEO Brain Lesser telling staff to prepare for the “sunsetting of agency-specific titles” and its plan to “evolve the agency brands to house dedicated client teams, but no longer operate as distinct business units”.

The restructure, implying a single P&L structure, is planned to rollout within weeks – and has been obliquely signalled as WPP looks to regain momentum as more consolidated rivals like Publicis power ahead, and Omnicom and Interpublic join forces.

At the start of the year, WPP told staff they would be expected to return to the office at least four days a week, with some employees complaining that the holdco was seeking to reduce liabilities ahead of impending job cuts.

Market analysts have long suggested WPP had fallen behind its major peers in collapsing agency brands.

Former WPP global business intelligence chief turned Madison & Wall founder Brian Wieser last year told Mi3 that he saw a widening fault line between unified and traditional multibrand models.

“Keeping a lot of different agency brands, hundreds of people with a CEO title and thousands of staff who work for those people – the cost structures are higher, the politics are more significant. The bureaucracy can make it harder to execute, evolve and adapt to the market,” said Wieser.

“So there's definitely a lot of advantages to the serious consolidation we've seen with Publicis, Dentsu and Havas. We have not seen anywhere near as much as probably needs to happen at WPP and Interpublic.”

That appears to be about to change.