Publicis Australia outpaces global group as media and data strategy pays off – Mediaweek

Australian ran well ahead of the group, posting 9.5% growth in Q4 and 7.3% across 2025.
Publicis Groupe’s global numbers might have ticked the right boxes, but it was Australia that quietly stole the show.
While the French holding company delivered 5.9% organic growth in the December quarter and 5.6% for the full year, its Australian operation ran well ahead of the group, posting 9.5% growth in Q4 and 7.3% across 2025 – placing it among Publicis’ strongest markets worldwide at a time when much of the advertising industry is still limping forward.
That local outperformance wasn’t just a footnote. It was one of the key reasons Asia Pacific delivered 6.2% growth in Q4 and 5.8% for the year, with Publicis explicitly calling out Australia alongside China and India as regional growth engines, while other markets went unmentioned.
At a global level, Publicis is leaning hard into its position as the industry outlier.
While rival holding companies are expected to post negative results for 2025, every Publicis region grew.
The company credits a three-year head start in AI-driven transformation for creating that gap – a head start that’s now compounding into real financial separation.
Over that three-year period, Publicis has lifted organic net revenue and operating profit by 20% and grown 700 basis points faster than the market in 2025 alone.
And the growth is coming from where the industry’s money is now flowing.
Connected Media – which spans planning, buying, performance, retail media, creators and influencers- now accounts for 60% of group revenue and delivered high-single-digit growth, cementing its role as Publicis’ core engine.
By contrast, its technology arm, Publicis Sapient, saw only slight growth in the December quarter as clients pulled back on large transformation projects, a signal that consulting-style revenues remain under pressure.
In other words: executional media, data and performance are paying the bills; long-horizon tech overhauls are being deferred.
Publicis’ commercial momentum isn’t just organic.
The group finished 2025 as the global leader in new business, banking more than US$8 billion in net new wins, retaining 98% of those accounts and losing no material existing clients.
It also topped JPMorgan’s global media billing rankings for the first time – including in the US and China – formally crowning Publicis the world’s largest media operator by billings.
That matters because scale now underwrites everything else: access to data, leverage with platforms, investment in AI, and the ability to fund the talent that makes it all work.
Looking to 2026, Publicis isn’t promising a sugar hit.
The group is forecasting 4% to 5% organic growth – modest on paper, but impressive in a market still grappling with muted client confidence and volatile spend.
The bet is that continued investment in AI, data, and people will continue to widen the competitive moat. The ambition is not just to be a holding company, but to become the industry’s most valuable partner – the “MVP” clients lean on as marketing becomes more automated, more complex and more performance-driven.
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