WPP's Digital Push

The ad and marketing giant appears to have a head start on rivals, but CEO Martin Sorrell doesn't think it's digital enough

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jan2009/gb2009016_218198.htm?campaign_id=yhoo

In addition to setting up a new business unit a few years back called WPP Digital, Sorrell is now pushing for every one of his 133,000 employees—along with the 15 heavyweight members of his board—to embrace digital technology like there's no tomorrow. Even the global financial turmoil, which whacked 45% off of WPP's stock price last year, isn't distracting him from that mission.

More than 50% of the company's 2008 revenues are expected to have come from Web marketing and sources other than traditional TV, radio, and print.

Yet despite Sorrell's enthusiasm for all things digital, creating a cyber-savvy culture at WPP remains a challenge. Old habits die hard, especially when Web initiatives generally remain less lucrative than traditional advertising. "It is easier when the CEO gets that, but it doesn't make it easy," says tech guru and WPP nonexecutive director Esther Dyson.

For a sense of how Sorrell wants it to work, consider how WPP recently won a hefty portion of a Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) contract that consolidates all of its U.S. pharmaceutical advertising. The contract, which is widely reported to be worth more than $100 million, was split between WPP and rival Interpublic (IPG). (Johnson & Johnson and the agencies have never commented publicly on the breakdown of business.)

To woo the pharmaceutical giant, WPP staged a science fair-style presentation inside JWT's New York office, where representatives from 20 WPP units sat in different booths, showing off displays such as a WPP-designed social network promoting a prescription drug and an interactive Web site to inform doctors about new treatments. A digital partner company (not part of WPP) called LiveWorld (LVWD) also demonstrated a new online database that, with a single click, listed the names of everyone in WPP's U.S. network with expertise in marketing disciplines relevant to J&J brands. All of them, WPP boasted, could be brought on to a virtual team serving J&J, with JWT acting as a kind of portal.