Stop Holding. Start Being.

The marketing services companies suffering most in our bifurcating industry share a revealing characteristic: they're still holding while winners have learned to be.

It's literally in the way they are commonly described. They are "holding" companies, and that single word explains everything about why they're losing. Omnicom. WPP. Interpublic Group are holding companies of other companies. Meanwhile, Publicis and Accenture don't just happen to be the two businesses outperforming everyone else, they are also platform companies, not holding companies.

Above all, and this seems (based on the comments I expect to get) to need to be experienced to be understood: this is not a structural moat. It is a cultural moat. A far wider moat, filled with crocodiles - hard fought and won in the construction of this competitive advantage.

For marketing leaders choosing agency partners, it determines whether you get fluid access to integrated capabilities or siloed services wrapped in coordination theatre.

Holding companies weren't born broken. They were purpose-built solutions to a specific set of 20th-century business challenges that no longer exist.

The advertising holding company structure emerged to solve two main problems during the acquisitive period of the 1980s and 1990s when they were fundamentally formed: client conflict management and specialist capability development. When Coca-Cola and Pepsi refused to work with the same agency, holding companies created firewalls between competing brands. When clients needed distinct creative, media, and digital capabilities, holding companies acquired specialists and maintained their independence to preserve expertise (and then to take multiple bites of the same cherry…)

The corporation was a thin layer that literally held on to a menagerie of deliberate silos. This worked beautifully when conflict management and specialisation mattered more than integration. When marketing was about distinct channels rather than omnichannel experiences. When data lived in silos and campaigns were discrete rather than continuous.

But that world ended fifteen years ago.

The holding company model was designed for an era when agency relationships lasted decades, when creative and media operated as separate functions, and when client conflicts could be managed through organisational separation. Today's marketing reality demands the opposite: fluid integration, data-driven personalisation, and seamless coordination across all touchpoints.

A decade ago, Publicis Groupe made a choice that was widely criticised at the time by the businesses now dealing with challenges: we decided to stop being a holding company.

The "Power of One" strategy, born in a cavernous underground conference room in San Francisco with our global leaders in 2015, marked a fundamental rejection of the holding company philosophy. Instead of maintaining separate agency brands with independent P&Ls and siloed operations, Publicis created a unified platform designed around client experience rather than internal conflict management. It was hard, and a lot of people who refused to let go of their tribal mentality left.

The transformation was obviously structural, but as I said earlier, more importantly it was cultural. Culturally, we eliminated the agency-first thinking that prioritises individual brand identities over client solutions.

The results speak for themselves. While traditional holding companies have shed 25,000 jobs since 2022 (the year that will go down as “peak headcount” in the industry, according to all trends and expectations), Publicis has grown from 98,000 to over 108,000 employees. While competitors struggle with single-digit growth, Publicis achieved 5.8% organic growth in 2024. While others lose new business battles, Publicis won four out of five global pitches.

When asked about potentially merging with a rival to match the scale of the proposed Omnicom-IPG combination, Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun's response was definitive: "Do we have time to integrate more of the same in the name of cost efficiencies? The answer is no."

Publicis doesn't think like a holding company anymore. They think like a technology platform that happens to include marketing services.

WPP's ongoing challenges illustrate the problem. Despite repeated attempts at integration, their agencies still operate as distinct businesses with separate client relationships. GroupM (recently repainted as "WPP Media”) handles media separately from the creative agencies. Client conflicts are managed through agency assignment rather than platform integration. Reinforcing this, the biggest decision from the new CEO Cindy Rose so far? To put new leadership at the top of a global creative network. I wonder where they will put the next deck chair?

The same pattern appears across Omnicom and IPG. Different agencies win different parts of client relationships. Coordination happens through account management rather than platform integration. Technology solutions are bolt-on additions rather than core infrastructure.

Even the looming Omnicom-IPG merger, which promises $750 million in annual synergies, is fundamentally a holding company solution: combining two collections of agencies rather than creating an integrated platform. The synergies will come from eliminating duplicate back-office functions, not from integrated client delivery.

Everest Group's warning, in reference to that merger, of a potential "integration nightmare spanning nearly a decade" isn't hyperbole, it's the predictable result of trying to merge holding company structures rather than platform capabilities.

If you're evaluating agency partnerships, the holding company question should be central to your assessment. Not because holding companies can't do good work (many of their individual agencies are excellent) but because the structure determines what kind of partnership you're entering.

Ask these diagnostic questions:

Integration reality check: When you brief the account team, do you meet with representatives from multiple agencies or a single integrated team? If it's multiple agencies, you're dealing with a holding company attempting coordination.

Technology coherence: Do your agency partners use a single technology platform for data, creative, and media, or multiple systems that require integration? Integrated platforms share data seamlessly; holding companies require data sharing protocols.

P&L alignment: Are you working with a single P&L that succeeds when you succeed, or multiple P&Ls that optimise for their individual agency performance? Platform companies align economics; holding companies manage them.

Decision authority: When strategic decisions need to be made, does your account leader have authority to commit resources across all capabilities, or do they need to coordinate with other agencies? Integration requires authority; coordination requires committee management.

Conflict management: How does your partner handle competitive conflicts—through platform isolation or agency separation? Companies use technology and process safeguards; holding companies use organisational firewalls.

The answers will tell you whether you're buying a platform or renting coordination theatre.

The bifurcation in our industry isn't between large and small, global and local, or creative and tech. It's between companies that deliver integrated platform solutions and holding companies that coordinate specialist services.

Platform companies will continue gaining market share because they can deliver the seamless, data-driven, technology-enabled marketing experiences that modern brands require. Holding companies will continue losing share because coordination theatre can't compete with genuine integration when clients need platform solutions.

The holding company model served its purpose when conflict management and specialist independence mattered more than integration. That era is over. The companies that recognise this earliest and most completely will own the next decade of client relationships.

The rest will continue holding... while others build the future.

Brandflow is written by Justin Billingsley, who has spent his career on all three sides of the industry's table: senior client, global agency leader, technology founder. First published 8 September 2025 in the Brandflow newsletter on LinkedIn.