WPP is a colossus. It own more than 100 marketing and communications firms — including the likes of J.Walter Thomson and Ogilvy, as well as Y & R and Hill +Knowlton. It has 2 lac employees making ads for companies such as Ford and Dell. It is the biggest of five advertising holding companies that control a significant portion of world’s advertising, marketing and communications firms. The others are Omnicon and the Interpublic Group in the United States, the Publicis Group in France and Dentsu in Japan.

The emergence and expansion of these companies represented a shift in power from the creative experts of advertising to financial experts such as Sorrel. Perhaps marketing personnel building up a firm may not be suitable for managing money. This is where WPP came in. It is a reaction against the indiscipline of Mad Men days.

In the last decade, the entry of digital platform have put a question mark on the utility of such holding companies at the entry level. These are cost-focussed companies who jeltison creative people. The mammoth size also comes in the way while trying to be responsive to the needs of the client.