DiscoverThe Media Leader PodcastThe strategy behind Publicis Groupe's landmark year — with Niel Bornman
The strategy behind Publicis Groupe's landmark year — with Niel Bornman

The strategy behind Publicis Groupe's landmark year — with Niel Bornman

Update: 2025-11-10
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Last week, The Media Leader hosted its flagship annual event in London, The Future of Media, and for this week’s episode of the podcast, the team wanted to bottle one of the headline interviews from the conference.

On Tuesday, host Jack Benjamin sat down with Niel Bornman, CEO of Publicis Media Connected UK.

Publicis is having a big year – it is, by some margin, the strongest-growing of the major global media holding groups, to the point where its competitors are generally looking to emulate its business model.

Bornman unpacked the moves the company has made in recent years to set it up for post-pandemic growth, and weighed whether its data-driven model is pushing advertisers more toward performance media.

The pair also spoke about the future of the agency model, debated concerns around principal media, and discussed what needs to change to improve Publicis Groupe’s declining share price.

Highlights:

2:14 : How Publicis' data-led model put it in a good post-pandemic position.

5:08 : Can Publicis maintain its USP as competitors look to emulate its business model?

7:18 : Are we over-investing in performance marketing?

10:45 : Boosting share price growth

13:15 : The future of the agency model in an era of AI

19:00 : Principal media: yay or nay?

Related articles:

‘We are in a crisis’: Advertising: Who Cares? suggests media business models must change

The great media agency shake-up

Who gains most from the agency shift to strategic partnerships with clients?

Can principal media be good, actually?

Podcast: What did Publicis get for $4.4bn? Interview with Epsilon UK MD Elliott Clayton

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Thanks to our production partners Trisonic for editing this episode.

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The strategy behind Publicis Groupe's landmark year — with Niel Bornman

The strategy behind Publicis Groupe's landmark year — with Niel Bornman