During what was supposed to be a quarter marked by financial uncertainty, IPG did slightly better than expected.
Not that the bar was set very high for IPG, which is still predicting a decrease in organic net revenue (meaning revenue before billable expenses) of 1% to 2% for the full year.
The holdco posted net revenue of $2.2 billion for the second quarter, with organic net revenue down 3.5% year over year. Both metrics are a slight improvement over Q1, when net revenue clocked in at $2 billion and YOY organic net revenue decreased at a rate of 3.6%.
Regardless, results were in line with overall expectations for 2025, CEO Philippe Krakowsky told investors on Thursday.
Tariffs? What tariffs?
But beyond expected decreases, Krakowsky said IPG has not noticed any net change in client activity as a result of the “more volatile” macroeconomic environment.
“Marketers as a whole are not reacting reflexively to the changing business and geopolitical landscape,” he said.
But the lack of clarity around health care in the US is a concern for IPG, which has a lot of large clients in that sector.
“We’ve got parts of a national government that are charged with communicating about broader public health, for example, and that’s clearly got a big question mark around it,” Krakowsky said.
According to CFO Ellen Johnson, the “decision of a single client in the health care sector” led to a 6.3% YOY revenue decrease in Q2 for IPG’s segment focused on integrated advertising and creativity-led solutions.
Slimming down for Omnicom
But revenue losses aside, IPG is getting itself ready to be acquired by Omnicom in the second half of this year and undergoing what Krakowsky referred to as a “program of strategic transformation.”
So far, IPG anticipates cost savings of $300 million for the year as a result of its restructuring activities, higher than the $250 million estimated at the tail end of 2024.
Throughout the integration planning process, “we’re finding that our respective capabilities in areas such as platforms, data, commerce and AI development are highly complementary,” said Krakowsky.
The holdco is also 6% smaller than it was last year as a result of IPG’s restructuring and automation efforts, with a current headcount of 51,300 employees, Johnson said.
Once the merger is complete, he said, IPG might consider staffing up again depending on the newly merged organization’s needs.
In the meantime, Omnicom and IPG continue to make headway toward their union. Since Omnicom reported earnings last week, the merger was cleared by Australia’s antitrust review, leaving just four jurisdictions left to still give approval.
AI everywhere
Apart from news about the impending merger, IPG had a lot of different AI advancements to brag about during its investor call.
Most notably, Krakowsky teased the launch of the holdco’s new agentic platform, ASC, or “agentic systems for commerce.” Using data from newly acquired retail analytics company Intelligence Node, ASC optimizes performance specifically for CPG brands and is already being used by two dozen of IPG’s global clients.
Then there’s Interact, the company-wide marketing and data platform that IPG launched in October. This product is now being used by 40% of IPG employees on a daily basis. It also features a SaaS-enabled component that clients can access directly, thus generating additional software fees for IPG.
Beyond that, individual agencies within IPG’s purview are working with all kinds of AI tools. Last month, for example, IPG Health introduced a new AI-powered synthetic focus group.
These products all represent new opportunities that will serve as “additional benefits” to IPG and Omnicom when they become one, said Krakowsky.
“It was always our ambition to make Interpublic the strongest possible company as it came into the merged organization,” he added, “and we’re clearly making good on that goal.”
