NEW YORK — IPG on Wednesday reported that its  PR and experiential agency group grew 1.5% on an organic basis in the first quarter of this year.

The quarterly lift was led by Golin, which saw “double-digit percentage growth” inQ1, IPG said. During that time, Golin saw leadership changes, including the promotion of Ginger Porter to chief client officer and appointments of Dawn Langeland and Cori McKeever to North America co-presidents.

The Weber Shandwick Collective also had “a solid start” to the year, with the firm’s corporate and public affairs capabilities driving growth, IPG said. In addition, the agency led IPG Dxtra Health’s AOR win for Boehringer Ingelheim’s mental health franchise.

The PR group performed poorer than it did in 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 increase 0.3% to $2.18 billion in Q1. . Compared to the first quarter of 2023, the effect of foreign currency translation was positive 0.1%, the impact of net dispositions was negative 1.1%, and the resulting organic increase of net revenue was 1.3%,” IPG said.

“The first quarter results we are reporting today represent a solid start to the year, and are consistent with our 2024 targets. Our data and tech driven media offerings, healthcare marketing, and PR capabilities continued to perform strongly, driving our growth. Marketer sentiment has begun to improve relative to the back half of last year, and the new business pipeline is more active,” said IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky.

“We continue to enhance our offerings, further embedding precision and performance into our integrated, full-funnel media solutions, including our suite of Unified Retail Media services, which deliver cross-platform planning and optimization for a range of clients. We are also progressing in the integration of technologies such as Generative AI into the core of our marketing services capabilities, notably through our recently announced partnership with Adobe, which speeds content ideation, creation, production and activation. By deploying proprietary best-in-class Acxiom data and identity products into our enterprise-wide marketing engine, we can create a more accurate picture of consumers and deeper connections with brands, all in the service of helping marketers drive growth and achieve business outcomes.

“At this point, with our smallest seasonal quarter complete, we continue to expect to achieve full-year organic growth of 1-2%, although a recent decision by a significant ongoing client will adversely impact the balance of this year and likely make achieving the top end of that target more challenging. With growth in that range, we continue to expect to deliver adjusted EBITA margin of 16.6% for the full year. The strength of our balance sheet positions us well to deliver on our long-standing commitment to capital returns and also augment our offerings and asset mix with M&A, with a particular focus on further broadening our commerce and digital transformation capabilities,” he said.

IPG's earnings report comes a week after Omnicom reported that its PR group was down 1.1% in Q1, the third consecutive quarter of revenue decline.