Diana Marszalek 20 Oct 2023 // 6:05PM GMT
NEW YORK — IPG's PR and experiential agency group reported 6.5% growth on an organic basis in Q3 2023, making it the holding company’s fastest growing segment.
IPG credited the strong quarter to robust business across its experiential and PR agencies, which include Weber Shandwick, Golin, Current Global and R&CPMK.
Golin in Q3 won new business from electric aircraft company Eve Air Mobility, luxury brand holding company Tapestry and Neutrogena.
Weber Shandwick’s growth in Q3 was driven by strength in the health sector and government/policy, IPG said. In addition, Weber Shandwick won Dollar Shave Club’s business and gained a significant new assignment with the CDC.
The segment has had more than two years of quarterly growth since the Covid pandemic.
IPG as a whole, however, saw a slight dip in Q3. Net revenue decreased 0.4% from the third quarter of 2022, during which the holding company saw revenue rise 5.6%.
Net revenue for the first nine months of the year was $6.81 billion, a 1.2% drop from the first nine months of 2022. The organic decrease of net revenue was 0.8% from the first nine months of 2022, compared to an organic increase of 8.2% during the first nine months of 2022.
“During the third quarter, revenue performance did not measure up to expectations, yet we continued to demonstrate disciplined management of the business and to see positive contributions to growth from our media offerings, the health care sector, sports and experiential marketing, and public relations,” said IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky.
“Factors that we have identified since the early part of the year continued to weigh on our growth in the quarter. These include the decreases in client activity in the tech and telecom client sector that have been evident across our industry, and the performance of certain of our digital specialists. Another factor impacting results is increased concern among marketers related to macroeconomic conditions, which led to the delay of projects and sales cycles, as well as slower- than-anticipated onboarding of some new business.
“Given the evolving business climate and our portfolio of clients and capabilities, as we look at the remainder of the year, we believe organic growth in the fourth quarter will be approximately 1%. Concurrently, we remain fully on track to deliver our margin goal for the year of 16.7%, which is unchanged, and represents margin expansion relative to 2022.
“We are focused on closing the year as strongly as possible and, specific to areas of underperformance, will simultaneously assess internal structural solutions in order to improve,” he said.
Friday’s earnings report comes a year-plus since Andy Polansky retired in June 2022 after a 38-year career with Interpublic Group and Weber Shandwick. Polansky spent the last three years of his career as chair and CEO of IPG’s Dxtra group, overseeing the holding group's PR, event and sports marketing agencies. The group now reports to Krakowsky.