Strength over size: How Omnicom is pitching the holding company post-IPG acquisition

A Madison Avenue makeover capped off 2025, with Omnicom becoming the largest holding company in the world after acquiring IPG. At the first big ad industry event of the year, the company leaned on its combined strength to pitch the new and improved Omnicom to advertising clients.

At CES this month, the holding company seemed to push back on what some in the industry viewed as the primary reason behind the union. “The acquisition of IPG wasn’t about getting bigger,” George Manas, chief growth and solutions officer at Omnicom, said during a presentation at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas about the newly combined company. “It was about building the strength of scale that you, our clients, need to win in the age of influence.”

With that said, executives did emphasize its new size throughout the pitch.

“Omnicom is now the largest media organization in the world,” Ellen Griffin, COO of OMD, noted during the presentation, adding that the holding company oversees over $70 billion in global media spend and has “40,000 media specialists sitting in over 70 markets.”

Still, Griffin echoed Manas and specified that the scale of the new Omnicom isn’t just to be bigger. “This isn’t size for the sake of size. This is leverage.”

Over the course of an hour-and-a-half-long presentation in front of a packed ballroom, execs spelled out what the new holding company has to offer, often leaning on that idea of strength. (And while audience members may have been keen to hear what Omnicom is all about now, attendance could have also been helped by the promise of a chat with actor and Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow during the last half hour.)

Beyond the execs armed with slides and the Paltrow appearance, the presentation also outlined the holding company’s ethos with a slickly designed video telling the audience once again of strength. “The best brands don’t just reach people,” the voice-over said. “They move them. But moving people at scale—that demands something new. Not more content. Not just efficiency. Strength.”

Whether or not marketers were wowed by the new and improved Omnicom, though, remains to be seen.