NEW YORK — IPG on Wednesday reported that its PR and experiential agency group grew by 1.2% on an organic basis during the third quarter of this year.

The quarterly lift was led by “very strong growth” at sports and entertainment marketing group Octagon as. well as “continued growth” in PR at Weber Shandwick and Golin.

IPG reported The Weber Shandwick Collective saw “solid” single-digit growth in the third quarter, driven by strong performance in North America and LATAM. Quarterly highlights include security new partnerships with Primark, The Aspen Group and clinical stage biopharmaceutical company Bicycle Therapeutics. The network is also collaborating with United Way Worldwide to launch its new brand strategy and was awarded the PR and social media accounts for gaming company, Tombola.

Golin saw “good growth” in the quarter across its practice groups, including influencer marketing, content creation and social. The agency continued to invest in talent, bringing on board a new executive to lead global AI learning who will drive the design, development and delivery of multimodal AI training programs for Golin's employees worldwide.

The PR group performance slightly lower than it did in Q2, when revenue rose 1.3% and in Q1, when the revenue rose 1.5%. It also performed poorer than it did other recent quarters (revenue grew by 2.9% in Q4 2023 and 6.5% in Q3). However, its performance furthers the growth streak it has been on for more than two years since the Covid pandemic.

IPG as a whole saw net revenue decrease 2.9% to $2.63 billion in Q3. The organic change of net revenue was flat from Q3 2023.

During the first nine months of the year, net revenue was $6.75 billion, a 0.9% decrease from the same period of time in 2023. Nine-month revenue rose 1% year-over-year on an organic basis.

IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky said in a statement:

“Net revenue in the third quarter was unchanged organically from the same period a year ago, which brings organic growth over the first nine months of this year to 1.0%. During the quarter, we saw solid contributions to growth from media services, sports marketing, data management and public relations. Our adjusted EBITA margin was 17.2%, underscoring continued operating discipline as we continue our enterprise-wide investments in growth and business transformation.

“Third quarter results include non-cash goodwill impairment expense of $232 million related to our digital specialist agencies and progress with the strategic sales process for R/GA and Huge.

“The quarter also continued to see progress in the evolution of our offerings and organizational structure, as we invest in the stronger, growing areas within the portfolio. The launch of Interact marks the next evolution of our marketing intelligence engine, which integrates data flows across the campaign lifecycle and consumer journey. This core technology connects our entire portfolio, from brand research as well as audience insights and audience creation, all the way through to creative ideation, production, commerce, and personalized CRM programs through the use of generative AI. It also powers media activation and optimization, including earned and owned channels, delivering better marketing results across media channels and touchpoints for our clients, in real time.

“Looking forward, we are seeing a strong new business pipeline, for both Q4 activity and longer-term AOR opportunities, and we remain focused on achieving organic growth of approximately 1% this year. At that level, we continue to target adjusted EBITA margin of 16.6%. Our long-standing commitment to capital returns remains an important priority and our strong balance sheet provides a solid foundation from which to continue to evolve our offerings and the solutions we provide for marketers.”