The news: WPP’s CMO and CEO of its Coca-Cola agency, Laurent Ezekiel, will depart the company to join Publicis, adding to a string of high-profile losses for the struggling holding company.

Ezekiel joined WPP after leaving Publicis in 2019. The return comes months after Publicis won Coca-Cola’s $700 million North American media business, per Adweek. A WPP spokesperson said that Ezekiel’s successor “will be announced shortly.”

Zooming out: It’s been a turbulent year for WPP.

• CEO Mark Read announced he will step down from his position after a 30-year tenure.
• WPP also lost its $1.7 billion Mars global media account to Publicis in June.
• WPP slashed its 2025 outlook because of declines in client spend and net new business, sending WPP’s stock to its lowest point since 2009.

Odd man out: Agencies are beset by challenges across the board. Global agency owners identified garnering new business sales (69.6%), revenue growth (46.9%), adapting to market trends (40.5%), and, most notably, client retention (38.7%) as their top challenges over the next year, per SparkToro. But WPP’s struggles come as other top holding companies are making strides, with Publicis’ organic growth jumping 5.9% and Omnicom’s rising 3% in Q2.

So what’s going on?

• WPP lags in tech and data integration. Building its own AI tool, WPP Open, hasn’t proven successful. Competitors like Publicis are farther ahead, leaning heavily into data from Epsilon and Sapient acquisitions.