LONDON (Reuters) – France’s Publicis has enlisted Snoop Dogg, the American rapper who became a breakout star at the Paris Olympics, to help it celebrate overtaking British rival WPP as the world’s largest ad group in 2024.
Snoop Dogg was seen everywhere at the Olympics, from carrying the torch to dressing in riding gear at equestrian events and cheering on gymnasts and athletes, in his role as a special correspondent for U.S. network NBC.
Appearing with the rapper in the group’s annual “The Wishes” video message, Chairman and Chief Executive Arthur Sadoun said “Mister Snoop” took over Paris in the summer and he was now helping “our little French holding company, Publicis, get ready for 2025”.
“That’s right – what’s Publicis holding? I don’t know – but what I do know is that Americans, Brits and French have been competing to see which holding company is the top dog,” Snoop Dogg said in the video. “And this year, Publicis has overtaken them all. Les Numeros One.”
Publicis has gained market share this year in contrast to peers facing sluggish growth.
The parent of agencies Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi has been growing faster than the other three major holding groups – WPP, Interpublic and Omnicom – helped by the targeted ad capabilities of its Epsilon Unit, powered by a huge amount of consumer behaviour data.
For the first nine months of 2024, Publicis reported net revenue of 10.11 billion euros.
WPP, for decades the world’s number one, reported equivalent revenue less pass-through costs of 8.36 billion pounds or 10.08 billion euros.
Analysts expect Publicis to come in at 13.9 billion euros for the full year, according to Visible Alpha Consensus.
WPP is forecast to report revenue less pass-through costs of 11.4 billion pounds, or 13.7 billion euros, according to a company-compiled consensus.
(1 euro = 0.8290 pounds)
(Reporting by Paul Sandle in London and Leo Marchandon in Gdansk; editing by David Evans)
