A couple of weeks ago, WPP, once the undisputed titan of adland in markets around the world, unveiled Elevate28. It’s a multi-year plan to ‘simplify’, ‘stabilise’, and ‘integrate’. To the market, it’s being sold as a bold leap into an AI-enabled future. To those of us who have spent two or more decades inside the belly of the holding company beast, it looks like something else entirely: a white flag.
By transitioning from a holding company to a single integrated company and slashing $676 million in costs, WPP is finally admitting that the model I lived and breathed for 20 years is broken. But for a CEO or CMO sitting in Sydney, Singapore, or Seoul, the question isn’t whether WPP can save itself—it’s whether its desperate rush for efficiency will actually cost you your growth.
For years, the holdCo promise was simple: a supermarket of world-class specialists. In reality, it was often a labyrinth of internal P&Ls, where integration was a buzzword used to mask the friction of departments incentivised against each other. Now, Elevate28 promises a single, streamlined entity. But as they consolidate into four global units, the local nuance craved by APAC brands—often focused on a collection of small, overlooked markets—is being traded for shared services and standardised processes.
When a global giant talks about unlocking almost $676 million in savings, they aren't talking about creative breakthroughs. They are talking about:
- Juniorisation: Reducing headcount by 8,000+ globally (as seen in their 2025 results) means accounts are increasingly managed by those learning on your dime.
- The AI shield: Using AI to redesign processes is often code for removing the senior human oversight that prevents expensive strategic errors.
- Centralisation: Decisions about local campaigns shouldn’t be made by a regional lead in a different time zone who thinks local means anything outside of London or New York.
While the giants are stabilising, the independent sector is accelerating. We are currently seeing a seismic structural shift across the APAC market. According to recent TrinityP3 data, while holding companies still dominate legacy media buying, independents are now dominating pitches in creative, PR, and CX.
The reason is simple: Agility is the new scale.
Take Australia as an example. In 2025, over 50% of Australian indie agency bosses forecast solid growth. Why? Because CEOs have realised they often don’t need a shopping basket of 100 sub-brands. They need specialist providers led by founders with skin in the game. They need the 70% of briefs that are now project-based to be handled by experts in their corner of a hectically fragmented marketing ecosystem and capability stack, not a generalist machine trying to find gross run-rate savings.
In the time it takes a holding company to align its internal stakeholders for a 'streamlined' pitch, an indie has already solved the problem and started the execution.
If you are a CMO in an APAC market, Elevate28 should be a call to consider whether you are truly being served—and serviced—by a model that reflects your needs. WPP’s strategy is explicitly designed to serve the world’s leading brands, the global tier 1s. Everyone else risks becoming the tail that pays for the head’s restructuring.
WPP wants to Elevate by 2028 but C-suites across APAC have businesses to grow in 2026.
Kiki Dunlaevy is the director of client partnerships at StudioSpace and a recovering veteran of the now-defunct holdco model. With over 20 years of experience in networks like Publicis, WPP, Omnicom and IPG, she now leads the charge for independent agency excellence in Australia.
Source: Campaign Asia-Pacific