WPP is betting its future on getting paid for outcomes

By Seb Joseph • February 27, 2026 •

For decades, the agency business has run on a simple, if imperfect logic: clients pay for time and the people who fill it. Hours logged, heads counted, invoices sent. Nobody particularly loved it but it was predictable enough that nobody moved to change it.

That may finally be shifting. At the presentation for its new strategy in London on Thursday (Feb. 26), WPP made the most explicitly public case that the future of agency compensation look less like a staffing invoice and more like a performance contract — one where fees are tied directly to business results, not inputs.

“Those outcomes aren’t ‘do you like the agency you work with’,” said Johnny Hornby, CEO, WPP specialist communications agency division. “Those outcomes are ‘are we selling more product and will we get paid on being able to sell more product?’”

That’s a notable thing for a senior ad exec to say in public. It’s even more notable that there’s a real client sitting behind it.

Not a concept, a contract

Jaguar Land Rover is the clearest proof point WPP has right now. The group is currently in an exclusive negotiation with the automaker to become its global creative and marketing partner, with full contracting expected by March. The commercial structure Hornby described — fees tied to measurable sales and brand performance rather than hours worked — is the model WPP is actively pushing in pitches. CEO Cindy Rose was direct about what she thinks it signals: “I believe this is the beginning of a more widespread commercial model evolution.”

The commercial structure Hornby described — fees tied to measurable sales and brand performance rather than hours worked — is the model WPP is actively pushing in pitches. Rose was direct about what she thinks it signals: “I believe this is the beginning of a more widespread commercial model evolution.”

Whether that’s CEO optimism or genuine market shift, it’s worth taking seriously. The conditions that have made outcome-based pay feel impossible for so long are changing. AI is compressing the cost of content production dramatically. A thousand ad variants now cost easily what five used to. That blows up the logic of charging by the unit. At the same time, measurement technology has advanced to the point where agencies can, with increasing credibility, draw a line between their work and actual sales.

“By shifting our revenue profile from being unpredictable and episodic to being much higher quality, recurring revenue that can be linked directly to the outcomes we deliver for our clients,” Rose said. “A commercial model that is more closely linked to client outcomes will enable us, over time, to move away from time and materials.”

WPP’s data platform, built partly around InfoSum’s federated technology, is central to the pitch. The company claims it can now connect first-party data, media signals and sales outcomes in a single closed loop, without data leaving a client’s environment.

For Heineken, that meant linking shopper data with TV broadcaster ITV’s viewing audiences and supermarket Tesco’s sales figures to measure real in-store uplift. For a U.S. retailer, rebalancing marketing investment through WPP’s platform reportedly generated £300 million in incremental sales. Results like these are ones the group is trying to wrap a performance fee around.

Three models, not one

The transition isn’t a clean flip. CFO Joannne Wilson laid out three commercial tracks WPP is running simultaneously: output-based pricing, which is growing but still a minority of work; and technology licensing fees including subscriptions and platform bundles. As Wilson explained: “With many of our clients, we’re working to understand what works best.”

Outcome-based elements have always existed in agency contracts as small bonus kickers. What WPP is describing is more structure — making performance the organizing principle of the relationship, not an addendum to it. Get it right, and the commercial benefits cut both ways. Clients get a partner whose fees are tied to actual business results, not hours spent. WPP, in theory, gets paid for the value it creates rather than the cost of creating it — a distinction that matters more as AI drives production costs down.

“We’re looking at this to be ultimately over time margin enhancing for us,” said Wilson, though she framed it as a consequence of delivering more value, versus cutting corners on delivery.

The internal bet

The holdco is wiring its own organization the same way. Global client leaders — the senior execs responsible for the biggest accounts — will now be paid on client growth, full stop. Not agency P&L, not holdco EBIDTA. Client growth.

“If you’re a GCL, you’re paid on your client growth. It’s that simple,” Rose said. “And it’s dramatically from where we are today, where if you’re an agency you’re paid on your agency results.”

The logic is that when WPP’s own people are on a version of performance pay they become better at making the case for it with clients.

The questions that remain

There are obvious gaps. What happens targets are missed? How are outcomes independently verified? What share of WPP’s revenue currently sits under any outcome-linked structure? None of those numbers were shared during the update, and analysts pushed repeatedly pushed on the lack of specifics.

Which is why the JLR contract, should it get ratified, will be so important. If WPP can demonstrate over the next year that the model works it will have something genuinely new to sell. If, on the other hand, it turns out to be a one-off, the outcome-based narrative risks becoming another piece of holdco lore.

Why that’s less likely to happen this time is due to the underlying infrastructure being more credible. The measurement tools exist while AI has already broke the per-unit pricing logic. And clients, under their own pressure to prove marketing returns, increasingly want a partner whose incentives match theirs.

The old model is running out of road. Whether WPP has found the new one is still an open question.