His name is a kind of Trademark In the advertising industry. With a powerful personal brand, he is known for his intense work and for not going back to any challenge. He has built and lost empires, has made allies and enemies during his extensive professional career. And keep it active – now as executive president of S4 Capital since 2018 – because he does not know how to play golf, as he tells us between laughs in this interview granted to Reason.WHY exclusively during his last visit to Madrid.

We receive at our home Martin Sorrellwho was founder and CEO of the WPP advertising macrogroup, and we do it at the time of dawn. The bell sounds exactly 8:30 in the morning. During the kept talk we talk precisely about The importance of efficiency in this industryquality that Sorrell bend at 80 years in each movement he makes and that has led as mantra to the essence of his company, whose motto is FASTER. Better Cheaper. And more.

RW. Martin, why are you still working?

Ms Because I have nothing better to do. And I don’t know how to play golf! (laughs).

Always the same topics

Throughout the decades, the issues that are discussed at the informative level about the advertising and marketing industry seem to be repeated in a cyclically year after year. Today is in Boga the survival of the holdings and the advertising modelsomething that leads us to reflect on why we are always questioning matters of this type: the arrival of the Internet and smartphones, the rise of consultants, the impact of artificial intelligence … It seems that there would be a kind of effort to focus energy on the negative of advances or changes.

RW. Why does it cost the sector so much to grow instead of surviving?

Ms We are introspective. People in this industry have many insecurities and focus on focusing on those things that could go wrong. There is a lot of talent, intelligent people who are constantly thinking about how the sector will advance at the business level. But insecurity I do not think it is bad, unless it leads you to make wrong or precipitated decisions.

In this start of the interview, he does not hesitate to quote Marion Harper as “The father of the holdings” Since he founded the advertising macrogroup IPG. And he did, as Sorrell recounts, with the premise that it was necessary to have separate agencies to be able to manage the accounts of competing brands such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Hence the idea of ​​creating an umbrella that group them under the same family, but with independent operations between each of them.

“Today there are companies that work with agencies from different groups and others that consolidate their advertising accounts in the same holding”. Thus, the wheel of Ideal Advertising Model It turns and turning as the years go by.

Easier job

“This is an industry of a trillion of dollars”. With The very present figures In his speech, Martin Sorrell refers to the current cast of the advertising cake, which gives a proportion of 700 billion investment for digital and 300 billion for traditional media, increasingly in decline. And he resorts to the numbers to influence that, from that investment in digital, 50% is going for large platforms, such as Alphabet or Meta. A fact that has led him to affirm on occasion that The work of marketing directors is now easier than ever because“The range of options in which investing is getting smaller and smaller, from a medium point of view”.

It is, therefore, to anticipate the following movement that will occur in this dollars. “Of course it will be digital, obviously Data Driven and with a technological base”he comments. But there is a debate still in force in the sector about whether Data Improve the Creativity Or it makes it worse. “Many people who think that data confuse and do the most difficult things. I think they accelerate decisions “.

While the times of Don Draper They have not gone forever, the turn is a fact. But Sorrell does not hesitate to give an example to David Ogilvywho was in a way the father of direct marketing with those personalized letters that he sent individually to customers. The same thing that is done today, but now with a layer of digitalization.

The real change is not structural, but technological.

RW. Do you think advertising is a financial act?

Ms We may not like it, but this is a business. Where and how that trillion of dollars is reversed, it is critical. Giants such as Apple or Microsoft are valued in three or four trillions of dollars, a figure that places them above the economy of a country like Spain. And with artificial intelligence they will grow even more.

Efficiency

Continuing with the figures, Sorrell uses here the example of a goal to highlight a structural situation of relevance: With advertising income of 160 billion dollars, the Meta CFO has recently assured that around 20% of that figure comes from campaigns that are executed in a programmatic way by machines that plan and buy the media. Something that highlights, as it indicates, “The approach that is between the platforms and the advertisers. Unless a regulator prevents it, to the rhythm that these giants are going to be closer and closer to our clients. And we will become validated by the algorithm output. ”

RW. Historically marketing has been based on inefficiencies to prosper. What happens when these inefficiencies disappear, for example, with AI?

Ms This is very interesting. But I think “inefficiencies” is an educated way of saying “friction”, or “discounts.”

Sorrell alludes to 2016, when generalized discounts In the advertising purchase system in the United States, they were evidenced by the country’s association of advertisers, despite the fact that the agencies groups persistently denied that this occurs as usual practice. “I think Havas was the only one to admit it”remember during the interview, and point out that these “Frictions” They will disappear in the era of Blockchain with simplification and a transparency layer throughout the supply chain. So those media companies that base their efficiency in discounts, “They will disappear.”

“The reason why IPG stays out of play is precisely the lack of scalability in its media operation”sentence.
*This interview has been conducted in the temporal context in which the OMNICOM group has acquired Interpublic Group (IPG) to form as a single company).

So, The big pending question That Sorrell throws in the air is: in a world guided by the algorithm, will these friction continue to exist or will technology eradicate them?

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

He does not know if this is a new industrial revolution but, in reference to those who, supposedly, have a more precise vision of what is happening, we are facing a more significant stage of change than the previous ones. “Sam Altman says that 95% of the people dedicated to advertising will be eradicated. I disagree in the percentage, but I do believe that the number of people will be reduced. Which does not mean that it is bad news because it will allow us to turn towards new opportunities and efficiencies. ”

RW. Is this a new cycle, such as the previous stages, or with AI will control over brands and agencies be lost?

Ms The answer is that I do not know, because when I started in 1985, the same issues were circled as today. I think it is something more more significant, in many ways. Because after all what AI does is simplify workflows. So many of those inefficiencies that cause “business opportunities” will disappear.

And here puts the example Monks – the operating brand of S4 Capital – with its Monks Flow tool that, as explained on its website, infuses intelligence in all aspects of the Marketing workflowfrom research and content creation to translations. Thus, the promise is to allow the team to focus on strategic thinking and creative expression, while IA is responsible for the most tedious tasks, which Sorrell refers as if they were A pinball game. “Many of the problems we have in advertising are given by bad client briefings”alert.

Paradigm change

Arriving at the end of the interview, Martin Sorrell raises some other issues of relevance for the advertising industry, such as the possibility of accessing more leisure thanks to the integration of artificial intelligence into the processes or the current state of the telecommuting. “WPP has gotten into a great mess”. He says it for the mandate, since April 2025, that all employees work at least four days a week in person at the office. “But it really is in a mess for many other issues …” leaving the good understanding of the rest of their words.

The conversation derives, from this point, towards a more sociological dyes approach. And it has recently read, the SCHOOL ASSISTANCE RATE In the United Kingdom it is now lower than it was before the pandemic, due to the implementation of teleworking among British families. “With parents at home, children also stay more in their homes and this will have great effects at the social level in relation to how they interact with other people”. In this sense, Sorrell affects that Social skills will be different.

“People are hungry for experiences. There is a real problem of loneliness, mental health issues and people travel more and more in an unfavorable economic context, sacrificing other areas only for living those experiences. ”

RW. At this point in your career, do you feel that you must demonstrate something else?

Ms Demonstrate no, but customers and organizations are very different now compared to 1985. It is important to continue creating an offer that is in line with the new demands. Creative differentiation will be the key in a context in which Artificial intelligence will take the reins of production.

If you prefer to hear the interview by podcast, here you have it: