M&W SATURDAY SUMMARY: Ad Tech’s Two Architectures, 2Q26 Results From Google, Comcast, Rogers, TelevisaUnivision and Havas + Marketer Commentary

Podcasts:

On this week’s M&W Podcast we review our work of the week!

Weekly Work:

An Interview with Chalice’s Adam Heimlich on Ad Tech’s Two Architecture

Google and Rogers Results: Digital Advertising Holds Strong as Traditional TV Continues to Erode

Comcast and TelevisaUnivision 2Q26: Sports Drive Gains as Linear TV Stays Weak

Havas 2Q26 Results: Decent Growth Story Offset By Growing Financial Investment in Louis Hachette Group

Large Marketer CEO and CFO Commentary: Alphabet, Bank of America, Capital One, J&J, Nike, and More

More Context:

More quarterly earnings results came in from agency-land this week from Havas, whose 2.5% organic growth rate was roughly in line with our expectations for the sector for the quarter and the year. Havas has executed well enough in recent years – certainly better than Omnicom and WPP if net revenue organic growth is anything to go by. However, it’s still below where Publicis is performing, as that company has benefitted from the organizational choices and investments they have made in recent years. Outperformance is likely to persist given their pending acquisition of LiveRamp (whose strategic benefits were a core part of our interview with Chalice’s Adam Heimlich this past week). Which is why it is somewhat surprising that Havas would deploy tens of millions of euros of cash into former corporate sibling Louis Hachette Group, as it announced this week.

For most agencies, capital can be used to accelerate internal or external investment in new geographies, more influencer businesses, sports marketing, commerce marketing or AI capabilities. If nothing else an agency could subsidize new business efforts among marginal clients to showcase what they do uniquely well.

We believe there are significant growth opportunities available to agencies now and in the future. However, there are also many threats to those who fail to invest sufficiently. For these reasons we normally argue that agency groups who prioritize buybacks and dividends are likely to see longer-term business underperformance vs those agency groups who prioritize internal and external investments. It should go without saying that an agency using its capital to invest outside of its core industry is positioning its core business to similarly underperform, with added questions to follow regarding investment rationales.