Lightly edited for readability. Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Business of Marketing, recorded live at Cannes Lions 2026. My guest today is Sir Martin Sorrell. Uh, needs no introduction, but for the fast- past four decades, Martin's been at the center-
Speaker 2: That makes me feel old.
Speaker 1: I know, I was worried about saying that.
Speaker 2: I got it.
Speaker 1: I'll, I'll... Let's re- rework that one.
Speaker 2: Rework. Leave it in.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's great. Um, you've been at the center of almost every shift in advertising, media, technology, and marketing. Over that time, you've built WPP into the world's largest marketing services company. And then when most people would've kind of reflected on that legacy, started again with S4 Capital, and you've built another business design, but this time for digital-first, data-driven, and increasingly AI-powered world. Few people have got a broader perspective on where marketing has come from, where it is today, and where it's heading next. Martin, welcome to the Business of Marketing.
Speaker 2: Good to be here. Nice introduction. One thing you forgot.
Speaker 1: Go on.
Speaker 2: CFO searches. Um, you know, people forget that we've done it, we've done it twice. We're trying for a third. Maybe it'll be third time lucky. We'll see.
Speaker 1: That's a great... That- that's... And I... Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, when you look at the numbers, you're definitely kind of in the absolute upper kind of quadrant percentile of attending more Cannes Lions festivals than anyone else here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, somebody asked me, uh, Kamal Ahmed, who's now at Fortune, asked me if I'd mention somebody else, uh, asked me how many, how many, uh, years I've been going. And I think, I think it's about 25 or 30. Um, and he says they should give you some-
Speaker 1: Some-
Speaker 2: You know, maybe a free pass.
Speaker 1: Loyalty.
Speaker 2: Maybe so, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: But, but, um, you know, and Cannes has changed.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, it used to be this sort of cadre of French Gauloises-smoking, rosé-drinking French creatives, you know, Maurice Levy. I can't remember the name of the guy who started it. Um, trying... I'm failing to remember him. Obviously, obviously C- uh, uh, Cannes, um, Terry Savage took over, now in Form and Stephen Carter, but, but it really was very parochial. It's still Anglo-Saxon dominating, if I can say that to the French. Um, too European, I think, still. But, you know, obviously American and the European. Doesn't give APAC, I think, enough credit-
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm
Speaker 2: ... prominence. And certainly doesn't give them LATAM. And I think LATAM is the... You know, we're in Mexico, we're in Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina. I mean, uh, about roughly half of our 6,200 people are based, a little bit less, are based in Latin America. And I'm a great believer in the strength of the creative, which is, you know, in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, as good as you get anywhere in the world. Dri- driven by football. It's Boca-River rivalry that, that drives it, I think . And I'm, I'm not joking, I think that is the, the key. And then technologically, there's... Globant-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... would be a very good example of that. So they, they... I mean, Cannes has changed.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Um, I think we'll get into it, but I think Cannes is looking at the wrong thing at the moment, and then we'll come back to that from an industrial point of view. But it's, you know, whether, whether the, the rose-tinted glasses creatives, you know, um, agree or not. Is this pod cast all right?
Speaker 1: That's okay. It's all good. It's just... Then it'll be even clearer. Perfect.
Speaker 2: The rose-tinted, um, glass, um, creatives agree or not, it's tech-dominated.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: And if you go down The Croisette, as you know, you know, WPP comes off the beach. PMG, which is basically a data-driven media company, a super good one, uh, goes on it. So you're gonna see, you, you know, in the next five years... And the next five years, Goldman Sachs predict that the four biggest hyperscalers, so Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, are gonna spend $5 trillion on AI infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: So, and just to put it in perspective, Google s- spends 200 billion this year on infrastructure and 8 billion on advertising. Or the last year. It'll be similar this year. So that's two weeks CapEx. So the world has changed. The industry hasn't changed with it yet.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Arthur Sutherland has.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: But certainly Mark Read didn't.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: And I think there's... Krzakowski didn't.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: You know, I think WPP, obviously in a bigger position, but, you know, I think WPP is, um, or Omnicom is a much harsher place-
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm
Speaker 2: ... today. They w-... I think it's always been very, pretty tough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: Now it's over tough.
Speaker 1: So let's carry on that kind of theme. What convers- I, I don't know. This year feels... I mean, does every year feel different? Sometimes it doesn't, but this year does feel different, and you've sort of led, you know, led us a little bit down some interesting paths there. But what conversations are you hearing this year that simply weren't happening three or four years ago?
Speaker 2: Well, I think the focus this year is on the impact of AI on creative. Okay? And that's where I think it's going wrong, because it should be focused on media. I'll come back to that. The last year is what's... You know, we said, you know, AI wow one year, uh, AI how the next year, uh, and we hope it'll be AI now. I mean, we're, we're waiting. A front page of our annual report, you know, puts 2026 AI now, question mark. And then that, thereby hangs the problem. But coming back to Cannes, Cannes focused on creative and the impact of AI on creative, and I think in the short to medium term, the human element will win. And the reason I say that is, you know, the, the compression in visualization and copywriting, you know, is sm- small... A slower time and faster time to get things done, s- um, lower cost. Agencies have to shift their model from time and materials to unit pricing, asset usage, and subscription. Right? So you have to flip your model. Marketing's supporting that inside clients, but procurement, you know, well, Linus is safety blanket and they don't want to change. So that has been the focus. Personalization at scale raises, like Bro- d- David Droga said on the Spotify, uh, podcast, ra- ra- Semaphore raises the general level. Agree. But as, um, James Quincy of Coca-Cola said on the call, I remember a year or so ago, "If everybody's personalizing, how do I make Coke's advertising different?" So the human dimension becomes more important, not less important. You know, whether you describe it as being a tool or not, it becomes more important. Now, until machines become more powerful than people, which Eric Schmidt and I saw his TikTok film where he said, you know, three years. Mm-hmm. And that must have been six months, a year ago. So if that was to happen, then we would be really i- in trouble. But I, I think at least for the short to medium term, and we have to see how it plays out, it's cr- creative. It's not safe because there's huge compression. You know, if you're like S4 or Monks and you don't have traditional production, it's not an issue. You're not disintermediating anything. Mm-hmm. If you're WPP, you have about 40% of your revenues coming from it. Even Publicis has 25. Omnicom probably has about the same at 40% as WPP. If you're dentsu, so maybe a little bit more media orientated, different problem for them. But, but basically you're disintermediating yourself, so you've got a self-fulfilling prophecy. So put that one to one side. Mm-hmm. I think the real focus at Cannes should have been or should be on media. Mm-hmm. We're starting to see a, a huge algorithmic penetration of media. Digital is 900 billion out of 1.2 trillion for the industry. The 300 billion is going backwards, so that's why Ellison does Viacom, Warner Brothers Discovery, and mixes it with Oracle to get into, to digital. Omnicom does IPG. In both case- both, three goes to one in the first case. Hmm. Two goes to one in the second. Huge compression. You know, WPP, 40% of their business are c- coming, uh, from, you know, from the creative side. You know, huge compression in that 300 billion. 900 billion is going, growing like Topsy, up 10, 15, 20%, and they're reinforcing their position with that CapEx, as I mentioned. Yeah. They're not gonna go away. The big tech companies are government-supported now. Even in the UK, you know, we're getting calls for Andy, Andy... When he becomes Prime Minister, Andy will have to deal with tech and making sure that the UK is a powerful AI nation. Yeah. And he'll have to deal with military, and the two... And defense, and the two things are related. Hmm. Now, even Alibaba, when Jack Ma made his boo-boo over Ant Financial and the IPO and the government said, "We're gonna break Alibaba up," it hasn't been broken up. Why? They know that it has to be intensified. So these people are not going away. And the thing that drives me nuts about our industry is, uh, the agencies think that, you know, they build a position is, uh, w- and media is fragmenting. It isn't fragmenting. It's concentrating. Google's 300 billion. Meta's 200 billion. Amazon's going to 100 billion, 75 now. TikTok outside China, 40. So those four platforms on their own are more than half of the 1.2 trillion and 2,900. So the focus here, like it or not, should be on media, which is the engine room of the holding companies. And whilst Arthur has done a brilliant job, and I think he's commonly acknowledged to be the best leader, maybe even better than Horace Levy, if that's possible, um, the big problem he's gonna have, and the bit, the film that he put out before Cannes is, is emblematic of this, is media is driving the profitability. And Arthur does the right thing, unlike Wrenn and Cindy Rose, who is building their business on a capability basis on the matrix. Arthur is doing it by country. That you pull pe- We're doing it at S4 and Monks. You pull people together, which is very difficult, by geographic. On the matrix, geographic first, then client, then capability. If you do it by capability, you split the firm. A Brian Lesser will fight with John Cooke. You can see it on the Croisette. Yeah. You know, it's a- Yeah ... it's a joke. Yeah. One WPP, you had 25 WPP. Still, despite pronouncements from the top that things are gonna change. So, uh, uh, but the problem Arthur has, he looks at the client as a whole, and somebody says, "Okay, here's... You can have my creative, you can have my, my media," and he puts the two together and he looks, and it has the highest margins or, I think Omnicom actually have higher margins, but they don't give out the net revenue figures. You can't figure it out. But Publicis are very strong. So if I'm getting compression on the media side, and when they leaked the report on The Trade Desk- Yep ... and when Omnicom said, "No, no, no, no problem," and then Publicis has collapsed on the point, what he has done is foc- get people to focus on the profitability of proprietary trading- Take rates, which is why Trade Desk got irritated, and it's brought back the 2016, you know, forays, K2, John Mandel, FBI. You remember we were-
Speaker 1: Yep
Speaker 2: ... we, we were threatened with the FBI, and John Wren, and Maurice Levy, and myself would have ended up in the same cell. Um perish the thought. But, you know, I think this is the real issue. So if media gets squeezed... And we saw a really interesting... WPP started to play around with agentic, uh, sort of bots-
Speaker 1: Yep
Speaker 2: ... and agents, uh, in the, in the video space. This is the, the beginning. So if $900 billion out of $1.2 trillion is coming in, there's gonna be more. There's gonna be more than 75. There's gonna be 80% by 2030. What it means is algorithmic analysis, which gives us better outputs, will be the, the, um, the, the, the thing. And it's very similar to the investment business.
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: You know, BlackRock manages $13 trillion of assets. 13 time... Well, 12 times our size, right? Uh, the industry.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Do they do things manually?
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: You know, when you write a statement for, you know, a listed company like we do, and you put profit growth or loss , you, you get dinged by the machines-
Speaker 1: Yep
Speaker 2: ... you know, immediately.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Immediately it comes out. So I, I think it's, um... the business is changing dramatically. We see it at the Cannes. You know, Michael Kasman has made Cannes, um, more like CES, and he's made, to be fair, CES more like Cannes. So the, the dominance of tech, you know, when we walk down the Croisette, if we do-
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm
Speaker 2: ... if, if I'm still here, um, in the next three, four, five years, it's gonna get even more concentrated. And there's no good, you know, doing the Don Draper job, um, and saying, "You know, uh, I, I wish it was gonna be..." It's changed. So tech knowledge is quintessentially important. It's what Monks are super good at. They do understand the tech. They do understand it. And, you know, our tech partners, you know, we work very closely with the platforms, and that's what you have to do. You have to work with Alphabet. You have to work with Meta. You have to work with Amazon. You have to work with TikTok, Alibaba, and Tencent. That's the game. The next biggest after that lot is Microsoft at $19 billion, Apple at $11 billion roughly. They've not published the statistics, but I think they're about right. You know, Twitter went from $5 billion... We saw in the SpaceX, uh, IPO document, uh, we, we saw it's gone down to under 2. Uh, Pinterest is 4, Snap is 6, Walmart's 5. So they're smaller. I'm not d- denying they're important-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... but the, the essential, you know, the, the guts of the industry is with the, with the big techs.
Speaker 1: Brilliant. Let's just quickly sort of talk about, I suppose in a sense, the money a little bit further. So you mentioned subscription, you mentioned sort of, you know, kind of unit-based pricing. Kind of what business models are strengthening. And I'm getting lots of people talk to me about how they're winning, winning new accounts on the back of a, you know, value-based, outcome-based kind of pricing. Kind of give me, give me... I was going to say, give me the Sorrell view on that.
Speaker 2: I think that's BS.
Speaker 1: Come on.
Speaker 2: Bullshit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Come on.
Speaker 2: Um, you know, Cindy, I think, was interviewed by Campaign, and, uh, Cindy Rose and, and said, "Mirabile dictu," she said all the i- industries moving from time and materials to, to, you know, uh, output pricing. Now, we, we have to change the model, but the... that is not true. People are not winning it on that basis yet.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: I think what we're seeing is... Again, I would describe it as the marketing function is super pro, the procurement function is super nervous, and the procurement function basically are worried about, you know, they need Linus's safety blanket. They need-
Speaker 1: Yep
Speaker 2: ... surety that-
Speaker 1: That's right
Speaker 2: ... we're not gonna have an explosion. They're not gonna make a mistake. Um, also I think there's a really interesting phenomenon which I haven't seen. You said my four dec- decades, which made me sound so, so old and doddery. Um, you know, it's a very, very different situation there. Usually when companies improve their profitability, advertising prospers. That it... You know, with the tech platforms, they have, but the agencies haven't, because publicists is winning share for the holding companies against the other holding companies. But the industry is flat. It's in that $300 billion that, that's shrinking. And I think what's really interesting, you know, a- about, about what's happening is that company profitability, Q1 this year, the S&P 500, we went in... Goldman, for example, went in thinking EPS was gonna be up, I think, about 14%. It's ended up at north of 18. Even excluding the hyperscalers, it's very strong. It's strong double digits. Q3, four last year, similar thing. Slightly lower, but 12 and, 12 and 10. The forecast for EPS growth for this year and next year is super good. Super double digits. Next year, I think it's probably about 12%, 13%, 14%. We've never seen it like this. I mean, Donald Trump is right about this, right? And, and in that environment, you know, I think when you have China-US under the relationship under pressure, because I think long term it is... I remember an American ambassador said to us the, the relationship is structurally competitive. So you've got that issue. You've got Russia, Putin. You've got Iran and the IRGC. I mean, all of these things are, I think, impenetrable problems, as Donald Trump is finding out. And they're very difficult to deal with. This creates an uncertain world. That's one thing, poli- geopolitical. The second thing is if growth is gonna be slow, which it is, you know, it'll be sub 3% for the world, despite India's sort of stellar growth around 5, 6%, and China's continued growth at around 4 or 5%. Uh, and if inflation is gonna be stubborn as it has been, and interest rates are gonna be higher than they have been historically, it means that companies are gonna find it, find it more difficult to grow. So bringing in AI, tech, quantum, blockchain, whatever, becomes super important. So you've got geographical fragmentation, which makes life uncertain, and you have to choose your markets, and then you've got tech, which you have to, to implement. In that world, clients are cautious. So sale cycles are increasing. It's getting more difficult to sell in, and there is a lethargy, coming back to your question, about adoption of unit pricing, output pricing. It will come.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: But for people to tell you that they're winning on the basis, they may be arguing the case, but we find procurement, you know, resistant maybe in their minds rightly, but we find them resistant to change.
Speaker 1: Let's, let's sort of talk about sort of where we are on the, the kind of the, the wow, kind of how and now point.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's, it's a great way of framing it-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... Martin, I have to say. Let's, let's go beyond, let's go beyond then if, if, if, you know, as you said, we're sort of now a question mark, but let's, what's after now, question mark?
Speaker 2: Sorry? After now.
Speaker 1: What happens after now?
Speaker 2: Well, let's get the now done.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right. Fair enough.
Speaker 2: We, we've got the now inside autos-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... because of Chinese EVs-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... and the threat.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, these companies don't move until they get ex- existential th- We had a, a very interesting discussion at the Female Quotient with AWS, with Tanuja Ranjiri, who runs, uh, AWS in, uh, EMEA. I won't say the name of the company, but really interesting guy there. Well, they're all interesting. But interesting guy who, chief transformation officer of a, of a major company. Uh, and, and, you know, they've got it. And, and he... But what he said was, it was the exis- This company was in trouble, new CEO, et cetera. It was the existential threat that forced them to transform. You know, that substantiates the theory that it's existential threats that get people to adopt-
Speaker 1: Yep
Speaker 2: ... AI at scale. So autos, Chinese EVs. Fintech platforms, NewBank, Fintech platform are driving, uh-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... driving banks crazy.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Okay? We're starting to see it a bit in packaged goods. So w- the, our work with General Mills, our work with SC Johnson, good examples of it. These are companies that are seeing price pressure-
Speaker 1: Yep
Speaker 2: ... because they increased prices during COVID, but they can't, you know, consumer resistance.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then with Trump's tariffs and supply chain v- geographical-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... fragmentation issues, they're seeing their commodity costs rise, so their margin are being squeezed, so they need to transform to do it. So the now is crucially important.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I, I... Well, to your question, it's a really interesting question. I think quantum is the next thing, and quantum will drive what we're seeing even faster.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, compute power and the ability to deal with issues around health and climate change-
Speaker 1: Yep
Speaker 2: ... and everything else, which we're suffering at the, at the moment. That, that I think is the next breakthrough. I was privileged enough, I go to Z- Google Zeitgeist in, in the US in Montecito, in Meghan land.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 2: Um, or Meghan and Harry land. I'll put it in that order. Um, in Montecito, um, every year, and they let us go and see one of their, their labs, their quantum labs last year, uh, in Santa Barbara. Uh, it's amazing what, what they're playing with, and these are really early waves. Um, so I think there's some really interesting things that will happen as a result of quantum, and if the, our industry thinks AI is disruptive, standby.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great way of phrasing it. Um, I wanna move on to the creator economy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um, big shift, you know. Um, again, lots of headlines out there. Unilever, you know, building a, an u- and a network of 300,000-
Speaker 2: And, and selling-
Speaker 1: Oh
Speaker 2: ... selling out their f- food business.
Speaker 1: I mean-
Speaker 2: Following Procter, you know, to did it first. You know, focus. Unilever w- you know, for, uh, the, the head of Unilever is a super, super, super intelligent guy. Ex CFO. Must be great.
Speaker 1: There's a theme here.
Speaker 1: Uh, you, when you built WPP, you know, we thought a lot about media and the conversation-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... that should, we should be having here, but, you know, individual creators commanding larger audiences than many traditional media brands. How significant is this shift?
Speaker 2: The influencer shift.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the creator. You know, the... I, I think it's gonna pa- Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, look, yes, they are, right?
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You know, every brand needs influencers, you know, either the top 1%, you know, I would... Did a session with Priyanka with-
Speaker 1: Yep
Speaker 2: ... with Amazon yesterday, uh, so Ind- in India. You know, or Paris Hilton, another one, another person we did, another, uh, UTA client that we did, um, we did work with. Um, so yes, they are all super important. But the interesting thing is, you know, I got a prospectus on a sale of a company, uh, just recently, which is heavily involved with YouTube. So I was looking at his revenues. His revenues are 30 million, which includes 20 million of payments to influencers and whatever. Their net revenue ... is 10, their profit is four, right? Um, and I just thought that was, again-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... you know, you say, "So, so where's the money going?" The money's flowing to those, those, those influencers. And thereby hangs a problem. You know, people, the consumer's not a dummy. You know, as David Ogilvy said, somewhat inappropriately, "The consumer is not a moron, it's your wife."
Speaker 2: So it's your partner, really. So let's change it a bit, David. Um, so I think they're not dumb and, you know, you can only sell a, a bad product once.
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: Uh, so I think y- yes, it's really important. Every brand we work with... Well, the other thing they're doing, apart from influencers, is sponsorship-
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm
Speaker 2: ... and experience. That's super important. And you know what we're seeing, we're doing the FIFA World Cup film. Um, so it's the official World Cup film with Disney. In fact, we've got a session here on Thursday, uh, with, uh, Fernando Suchi who's the producer, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn, Melania. He is, he, he did, uh, Pa- Pa- plus Pablo Bossi who did Los Muchachos, which was a very successful Argentinian film about Argentina winning the World Cup.
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: Um, and with, um, with, with Disney, uh, Disney distributing it, so, you know, super good. So that's a good example. FIFA now really m- you know, five years of football in America, really maybe w- maybe we're seeing the fundamental change.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: It needs to be done at college sport level-
Speaker 1: Mm
Speaker 2: ... 'cause the NFL is really powerful at college sport.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But the top five sports, soccer, football, has replaced ice hockey as its number, I, I would say number three. Um, it's getting up to, it, it has to g- go over basketball and over the NFL, but the audiences for World Cup are as big as the, the Super Bowl. Uh, so we're start, uh, and with-
Speaker 1: Sure
Speaker 2: ... that three-nation tournament, and we're gonna have a five-nation tournament in '30. You're gonna... Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, or actually it's six, right? Spain, oh, it's five. Spain and Morocco.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: So it's five. So this multi-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... market thing which everybody says is so, so difficult, and it is difficult, but it's, it's super good. So sponsorship is critically important as well as influence. So F1, super well, you know?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: New bank into Miami stadium, New Bank Stadium, and F1 for their platform for, for, for growing. So I would say IOC on the back foot before Paris, but now with a new president, uh, I think you really have, they have an opportunity. You know, they signed up JP Morgan, uh, as their global bank sponsor. So the IOC, I, I, I would rank it, you know, FIFA on top, F1 doing very well as well as FIFA, and then, then IOC. So IOC has gotta re- redo what they, they, they do.
Speaker 1: You talked about Walmart, and I think it's great, you know, kind of-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... example of kind of retail media-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... you know, sort of gone from buzzword to boardroom kind of priority-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... in a sense, right?
Speaker 2: Well, that's Seth Dallaire there who does a great job. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What, uh, you know, like, if you obviously as a percentage of the overall pool that you kind of outlined, how significant, you know, do you see retail media going forward?
Speaker 2: Well, it's significant now, but, you know, look at the numbers. Yeah, I said Walmart's 5 billion.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay? So when you order a magnitude and then you have Amazon, which I suppose you would put in that category as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people used to laugh heartily when I said they'll get to 100 billion. They're 75 and rising, and they'll get to 100, I would say, in the next-
Speaker 1: Well, you pioneered that with WPP, I remember. You, you announced that partnership.
Speaker 2: Paul Cotter who runs Amazon Ads is, uh, super good. I mean, he, he doesn't put himself out. He's not doing podcasts like this, but somebody should nail him down and, and get him to, to... He's, he's super, super intelligent and, you know, I catch up with him at CES and I catch up with him here, and I get my sort of six-month fix from Paul about what's happening in the world. He is a super brain. He and Alex Schultz, I think, you know, he was the CMO of Meta, are the two, you know, two really, really, uh, good. You know, Josh Spanier, Michael Bailey at Google and, you know, is also similar, similar, but super good people.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to China for a second because, um, you've mentioned it briefly in the relationship and the, and the sort of in the context of geopolitical, but I, I wanna kind of go a bit deeper because you've spent decades. Again, you were the first, you were the first folks there, right?
Speaker 2: It's time I said that.
Speaker 1: Oh, gee whiz.
Speaker 1: Kick me out now.
Speaker 2: This stuff.
Speaker 1: So, but, but let's, let's, let's look, like how, how should CMOs, business leaders be thinking about China over the next decade particularly?
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's really tough for CMOs.
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: I, there was an article headline, I can't remember which journal it was, said, you know, CMOs are gonna be the best CEOs. I mean, the honest answer is there are very few CMOs who become CEOs. Why is it? It tends to be the financial function, you know, ex-CFOs make it. Um, and thereby hangs the problem. We're gonna do a conference shortly of CMOs and CFOs. Uh, Sean Downey, uh, we did a session with Sean Downey of Google, who runs the biggest region there, you know, the Americas. And really interestingly, he said, you know, "We, we're, we're at, at Google Alphabet, we're spending more time with CFOs." And the, the problem I see for marketing is, you know, what's a market- We have to prove our worth, right? You know, CFOs say, "What are we spending all this money?" I remember, uh, one of our clients, the guy running North America became CEO- And I knew the CMO there. And the CE- the new CEO said to the CMO, "Why are we spending all this money on upper funnel, you know, Olympics, F1, FIFA, whatever? You know, I'm, I go to the market every quarter and they ask me, 'What's your organic growth rate? What's your margin?' I have to do it now quickly. Um, so we all got to spend it on activation, lower and mid funnel, which is where Monks, you know, has its strength."
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Um, so I think it's a real problem. Uh, so for example, as a small example, you know, we have our venture fund.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: We've invested in a company called Verido, which a, a Australian out-of-home measurement company.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Super interesting because in Australia... I was talking to him last night, he's here, one of the principals, and they've moved the outdoor share from 11 to 14% in Australia, but it's 14%, which is almost five times bigger than it is worldwide. It's probably worldwide about 3%. And Barry Frey runs the trade association, I talked to him here. But, uh, what we're gonna do is we're gonna spread Verido's capability through from Australia. But it's about verification. You know, the old days, the, the s- I'm gonna say sleazy days of outdoor are gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You convert these old sites to digital sites. It's almost an infrastructure play.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Right? Your, your digital sites. And so, yeah, I think what w- the problem for marketing is justifying its existence, and agencies have to justify their existence. And I think the reality is that we have to get close to the platforms. You know, when I was here in Cannes many, many years ago, a woman called Lauren Reis, who worked for me, she was a Harvard MBA, and she said... You know, it was frenemy. She was the one who came out with frenemy as a, as a, a term. And I was here with Nikesh Arora, who at that time was a, you know... He's now at a different company and, um, doing super successfully. Um, and it, and I... We coined the phrase there, and it got a lot of play, and I think, you know, it's, it's really f- got to be friend. Um-
Speaker 1: Yep
Speaker 2: ... and it's a big friend, and it's a reinforcing friend, as I said, because of the CapEx spend. So you must get close to the platform. And agencies are validators. Let's get real. We're validators. And so if you're Google, and you're 300 billion out of 900 billion, or 300 billion or 1.2, there's another 75% or 66 and two-thirds, you wouldn't give your money to Murdoch and say, "Invest it for me." You wanna have some check.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So we have to check the maths. We have to... You can't mark your own homework, so we have to check it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that's why Publicis buys a library.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Right? And whether they can maintain the independence of li- You know, the third, third brick came out of the wall with WPP. You had Stagwell and you had, uh, Omnicom all pulling out. So Arktur, Arktur has the same issue we had with Millward Brown. In the 1990s, we were... Millward Brown copy testing and tracking, and people said, "Martin, how can WPP own Millward Brown?" Good tracking. And by the way, we didn't exploit it sufficiently. You know, I said it... Should've said to Owen Gottlieb, who was running Group M, "You take over Kantar, meld it in..." This is 20/20 hindsight. "Meld it in to what's happening." Um, so we shall see how it plays out, but, but I think we need more verification of what we're doing. And maybe, you know, if I'm right about the shift to media, the algorithmic analysis will be so sufficient, you know, you put Quantum on top of it-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... as we discussed, you know, with blockchain, with AI, maybe, you know, it will become easier for us. At the moment, it's extremely tough. I'm, I'm very struck by that comment about you, companies are telling you, "We're selling in..." It sounds like agency bullshit.
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted to ask you. Listen, you're busy. It's been a fascinating conversation. You've been listening to The Business cass-
Speaker 2: Busy too.
Speaker 1: Oh. Um, thank you, Martin-
Speaker 2: No
Speaker 1: ... for joining us.
Speaker 2: Good. Great. I hope it's of value.
Speaker 1: It certainly is.
Speaker 2: Propagate it. Good.
Speaker 1: Thanks, man.