Omnicom Group ended the year on a high note with organic revenue growth of 4.4%, which company CEO John Wren said exceeded expectations.
Revenue for the period totaled $4.1 billion, up 5% percent on a reported basis.
The company’s advertising and media operation was the primary growth driver in Q4 with organic growth of 9.3%. The firm doesn’t break out creative versus media agency performance but executives on an earnings call said media was the primary growth driver.
Q4 project work was also strong, particularly in Western Europe where Wren said it was stronger than expected.
For the full year revenue totaled $14.7 billion with 4.1% organic growth which was in line with previous guidance.
Initial growth guidance for the full year 2024 is 3.5% to 5%. “We are set up well with solid fundamentals, tremendous opportunities in digital commerce and retail media from our Flywheel acquisition, and momentum in new business wins,” said Wren.
The Flywheel acquisition closed on Jan. 2 and Wren said it will transform Omnicom from an ad-marketing company to a “marketing and sales” organization given the huge amounts of marketplace sales data that Flywheel brings to the table which is being combined with the spending data contained within the group’s Omni operating system.
Wren noted that Flywheel, in addition to other benefits, should make the company significantly more competitive in the CPG category than it has been historically. Duncan Painter who leads Flywheel (he joined from Ascential which sold Flywheel to Omnicom) said on the call that the commerce and retail media platform currently serves 50 of the top 100 CPG companies. He also said the combination with Omnicom provides Flywheel with opportunities in categories like technology, electronics and automotive.
Wren also confirmed that the company has just created a new entity called Omnicom Content Studios that will orchestrate the ramp-up of content at the company on a global scale. The move dovetails with the firm’s acquisition earlier this month of UK-based content studio Coffee & TV.
In the U.S., organic growth was 2.6% for the full year. The UK was up 4.7% and Europe 7.2%. The Asia Pacific region was up 6% and Latin America up 13%.
