Publicis Groupe and IPG continued to show strength in Q2, leading both holding companies to upgrade their full-year guidance despite looming macroeconomic challenges.

Publicis Groupe

Organic revenue grew by 10.3% year-over-year at Publicis in Q2, which the company pointed out was compared to an already-strong Q2 2021 where its growth was 17.1%. For the year so far, organic revenue has grown by 10.4%, and the company expects full-year organic revenue growth to be somewhere between 6% and 7%.

Arthur Sadoun, chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe, said growth was strong across all regions, with much of the new business it won in the latter parts of 2021 now being fully onboarded.

But the main callout, as it has been in past quarters for Publicis, was its Publicis.Sapient digital transformation unit and the Epsilon data offering, which Sadoun said “confirm[s] our ability to capture the shift of client investment towards data, technology and digital business transformation.” Organic revenue at Publicis.Sapient was up 19.1% in Q2, which is compared to a previous year quarter where the unit grew by 15%. Organic revenue at Epsilon grew by 13.7%, after having 33% organic growth in Q2 2021.

Organic revenue grew by 10.3% in North America, the company’s largest market, with double-digit growth in traditional and digital media, sequential improvement in creative and “remarkable” performance at Publicis.Sapient and Epsilon in the double digits.

Looking forward, Sadoun says the company’s “agile platform organization” will let it be adaptive and help clients address challenges brought on by recessions expected to come in the near future.

IPG

In Q2, organic revenue at IPG grew by 7.9% year-over-year, with first-half organic revenue growth at 7.1%. The holding company is now targeting 6.5% organic growth for the full year.

Organic revenue grew by 6.2% in the company’s Media, Data & Engagement Solutions division, which contains the media agencies within IPG Mediabrands, data offerings Acxiom and Kinesso and commerce specialist agencies, including MRM and Huge. In the creative advertising division, organic revenue grew by 8.5%, while growth was 11.1% among its PR, health, entertainment and experiential agencies.

By region, organic growth was 11% in the “all other markets” segment, which includes Canada. In the U.S., IPG’s largest market, organic revenue grew by 8.3%.

CEO Philippe Krakowsky said the growth was broad-based across regions, sectors and operating units, but did say a big part of it, and differentiator of its performance compared to its competition, is its “ability to bring together creativity, digital technology and data to create marketing solutions that are responsive to the evolving business transformation needs of our clients.”