Beating an unliving horse.
For the last week, ever since last Thursday, I've been scratching my head so often I might be carving ruts into my scalp.
You'll recall it as the day Cindy Rose, the new WPP CEO, announced the advertising holdco would reorganize into WPP Media, WPP Creative, WPP Production, and WPP Enterprise Solutions as part of its "Elevate28" recovery plan.
Her headline summary: "WPP no longer wants to be a holding company."
Wait, what? Somebody, anybody, is going to have to explain to me how that’s anything short of brand malpractice.
So, don't get me wrong: I harbor no antipathy to WPP or its peers. Big reservations, sure, particularly about what happens when their smelly stuff slavishly obeys gravity and oozes down-ladder.
But as we heard during Tuesday's "Unfettered: The Independent Agency Summit" here in New York, they are financial, not advertising, organizations. Loyalty may be contractually bought and paid for, but their true allegiance is to the equity markets since that’s where the leadership makes bones and bonuses.
The price tag in human terms: 10,000 to 15,000 jobs gonzo.
But, as I say, this isn't to point fingers so much as to view what Zorba would call the “complete catastrophe” with eyes wide open. And that brings me back to the WPP questions that have had me gob-smacking since last week:
Why position against a negative? Pro tip: In technical branding terms, talking about what you don’t want to be versus what you do is referred to as a “no-no.”
Why untether the newly confusing and confused beast from anything that promotes competitive difference and distinction? I get a big copy point is “stanch the bleeding,” but who does this sort of thing without “new, different, and improved?”
Why four centers, with staff somehow migrating between subordinate agencies in an amoeba-like Brownian movement?
Could configuring around four separate profit centers pre-package potential spin-offs, if, say, WPP creative or WPP production proves to be less profitable than WPP media? Asking for a cynical friend.
And is this just another example of a consulting firm, divorced and disinterested in the core business of advertising, saying, “whatever you were doing, do the reverse.”
The consultant, of course, is McKinsey, whom Ms. Rose hired to help her plot the thing. My experience with other clients where we've crossed paths is that they start with a focus on presumed market misalignments, almost always concluding, “if you’re centralized, decentralize; or vice versa.”
I asked Perplexity if that was a fair characterization, and it said the reality is more nuanced. “Like how?” I asked.
"McKinsey is the kind of consultant that borrows your watch, tells you you’re late, and then bills you seven figures to recommend you start walking in the opposite direction.”
The horse ain’t dead, but, damn, is it living?
