Welcome in, today is Monday, August tenth, and we begin with Marketing Dive on WPP, where the restructure is finally being tested on the revenue line. Marketing Dive reports WPP is converting its streamlined structure into new business as revenue declines narrow, following our earlier report on the share surge that came with first-half results. In that account, chief executive Cindy Rose points to Wendy's handing its United States media to the group as a sign clients are responding to the Elevate28 restructure. The same reporting has Rose flagging artificial intelligence as a possible deflationary force on agency pricing. That is the more consequential line for the trade, because it reads straight through to how holding-company work gets billed rather than how it gets staffed. More About Advertising notes the shares have largely held last week's gains, keeping the company above a four-billion-pound valuation. That column credits the Jaguar Land Rover win to Johnny Hornby, and flags the Coca-Cola business at WPP Open X as the next pressure point, with Publicis already holding Coke's North America media. It also quotes Rose saying year one of Elevate28 is about stabilising the business, which leaves growth as the year-two test. Investor commentary is not uniformly convinced. Seeking Alpha, writing as opinion, argues WPP's sub-peer growth problem continues. Also today, a six-year WPP media relationship ends. FiercePharma reports Novo Nordisk has named Omnicom its agency of record for United States media buying, replacing WPP's Wavemaker, which won the business in twenty twenty. Liz Skrbkova, who leads United States media and stakeholder relations at the Danish drugmaker, told that outlet Omnicom takes over in the fourth quarter, and that the agreement covers the United States only. On size, that same account puts the account at five hundred and twenty million dollars, citing COMvergence data reported by Adweek. MediaPost, citing the same research firm, says Novo spends upwards of six hundred million dollars a year on media. Bizcommunity reports the appointment followed a competitive review and covers planning as well as buying, across a portfolio that includes Ozempic and Wegovy. Industry reaction leans toward reading the switch as evidence that long tenure no longer protects a media retainer, with some in the trade placing it alongside other recent large wins as an early signal of share consolidating toward the biggest platforms. The timing carries its own weight. Per FiercePharma, Novo is rebuilding around its oral Wegovy pill after losing ground to compounding pharmacies and Eli Lilly, which puts marketing at the centre of the next phase. MediaPost adds that Novo sued Lilly last month over allegedly false GLP-1 advertising. Separately, new research puts the artificial-intelligence skills gap at the top of the marketing organisation, not the bottom. NewtonX, surveying five hundred industry professionals on behalf of Adweek, found eighty-one percent of respondents think marketers overstate their AI proficiency, and forty-seven percent believe senior leadership lags every other employee level. The measures are self-reported. That study lands alongside Gartner research cited in the same piece, in which just fifteen percent of surveyed chief executives said their CMOs had the AI savviness to lead this year. Gartner's Lizzy Foo Kune, a distinguished vice president analyst who works with marketing teams on AI literacy, told Adweek that CMOs have fallen into a trap of assuming AI will reshape the industry without fundamentally reshaping their own roles. For anyone pitching AI-led work, that is a read on who in the room can actually evaluate it. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Digiday argues creator agencies are rebuilding as entertainment studios, with brand budgets, not studios, financing the production. The same outlet's by-the-numbers look at AI search finds marketers carving out budgets ahead of the execution, measurement and content practices needed to support them. And finally, Digiday reports Gap Inc. and Staples are inviting employees to become creators, with Marketing Dive noting the work spans newsletters, social and product storytelling.