The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (NYSE:IPG) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Tim Nollen: Okay, thanks.

Philippe Krakowsky: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Cameron McVeigh with Morgan Stanley. You may go ahead.

Philippe Krakowsky: Cameron.

Cameron McVeigh: Hi guys. Just a couple quick ones. Curious if you could quantify the very strong growth in Media that you saw this quarter? And then secondly, the increase in SG&A due to some senior enterprise leadership investment and IT, maybe any more color on that and if we should expect increased investment over the year? Thanks.

Philippe Krakowsky: It seems I can’t help you on the first one, because as you know, it’s not really a – Ellen can unpack the latter for you in detail.

Ellen Johnson: Sure. Good morning. SG&A will be higher going forward as we are making strategic investments as Philippe mentioned in his remarks in senior enterprise talent and technology that should lead to both increased growth and efficiency going forward. These were all considered, I just mentioned in the guidance that we’ve given. Q1 was slightly higher due to discrete items, but, in general, that ratio should be higher this year.

Philippe Krakowsky: And given the nature of the work that we do, there’s definitely an increased need for, we’ve always talked about integration of services in open architecture, but now, as we’re saying, you’re talking about the need to centralize some of these horizontal capabilities at scale, a data layer, a production and Gen AI-driven content layer. Clearly what KINESSO does for us in terms of activating that data into the Media ecosystem. And so, it does just shift where the focus is. And the fact that you need folks at the center who can operate things at that scale and get the agencies plugged into that. So it’s just going to be shifts inside of our model to Ellen’s point, it’s factored into our thinking.

Operator: Thank you. And that was our last question. I’ll now turn it back to Philippe for any final thoughts.

Philippe Krakowsky: Thank you, Sue. Thank you all for the time. Obviously, some progress but work in progress. So we look forward to reporting back again next quarter.

Operator: Thank you. And that concludes today’s conference. You may disconnect at this time.