Thank you very much, and welcome everyone. Thank you all for joining us. On this call, we're going to really make some brief introductory remarks, and then focus it on the Q&A. You can get the transcript of the call from this morning and the slides if you like. I'm here in London with John and Peregrine. Look, I think before we start the sort of formal remarks, just a few comments on the news that I think we all woke up to. I don't think it's something that we look at with great concern. We have around 200 people who work for us in Ukraine.
We have been in touch with them, you know, for some time, on contingency plans. You know, I don't know that we, you know, expected what happened today to happen, but we have been in touch with them on contingency plans and providing them with, financial and other assistance. I'm sure we'll get on to sort of the broader impact on our results in the call, but I think we should sort of acknowledge the situation there, you know, right from the beginning. If we turn to our results and just how we think about the year.
Look, I think we had a very strong performance, 12.1% net sales growth, more than double the guidance we gave before the beginning of the year, and close to 2.9% increase on 2019. Effectively, we more than recovered our growth. Actually, if you do the math, we outturned 2021 with roughly the level of net sales that we expected to be in 2023 back in December 2020. I think it was a much stronger competitive performance by WPP on top of a broader stronger economic recovery than perhaps that we expected. We had strong growth across the board in general integrated agencies, both media and creative.
I think it's important to think about the strong performance of our creative business, up 7.7% in the year. A really good performance from our public relations, public affairs businesses, and indeed from our specialist agencies. You know, specialist agencies probably against a slightly tougher 2020, but the PR businesses against, you know, relatively resilient 2020. You know, the faster-growing parts of our business are becoming, you know, strategically and financially more important to us, both in the areas of experience commerce and technology, but also the digital parts of GroupM, with a 41% growth in commerce media.
I think what we're particularly pleased with the competitiveness of our offer reflecting the investments we've made in the networks, the investments we've made in creativity, the investments we've made in data and technology. I think what's most reassuring or most sort of validating to our approach is the fact that Google, you know, The Coca-Cola Company, Unilever, all really, you know, increased and strengthened their partnership with WPP. I think it's very important to see three of the world's top companies and three of the world's marketers really strategically align much of what they do with us as a company. You know, part of that, but not all of it, is down to the progress we're making creatively. I still believe, and we still believe that creativity is at the heart of WPP's business.
We won Holding Company of the Year or Creative Company of the Year at the Cannes Lions in 2021, the first time we've done so since 2017, and that I think reflects the strength of the business, not just in our creative agencies, but in our media businesses and our PR businesses and in our other agencies. Had a strong return from the business, not just a GBP 1 billion return to shareholders, but the money we've been able to invest inside the business organically and in acquisitions, in refilling our incentives, in share buybacks and in the dividend. Net-net, that gives us good momentum going into 2022. We're guiding to like-for-like growth of around 5% for the year. Again, what's important to that, it's very broad-based geographically.
The U.S., which as you know, has been a strategic priority to improve the performance of our businesses in the U.S., is gonna contribute around 5% for the year. Our creative agencies, again, areas where we haven't seen strong growth for a number of years, again, will contribute around 5% in 2022 against an increase of 7.7% in 2021. Growth on very good growth 2021 - 2022. Again, we haven't seen growth of those levels in the U.S. or in our creative agencies since 2010. The first time since 2010 that we expect growth of above 5%.
Further continued margin improvement and then given the strength of our balance sheet and our financial performance, have the ability to make, you know, a strong share buyback that we're announcing today. I think net-net, we go into the year with confidence. Before we turn to Q&A, one more thank you, I'd like to thank Fran Butera. He brought us on the call. You know, Fran. He's been working for us for more than 20 years. He's retiring, I'm sad to say, next week. You know, at the heart of our investor relations efforts, as I said, for a long time in the U.S., a great support to me and to the rest of our management team, and I know to our investors and to our analysts.
He knows our business understandably very well. We wish him all the best and thank him for everything he's contributed, and I'm sure many of you will want to as well. With that, as opening remarks, John and I are here to take any questions.
Thank you, sir. Our first question is from Tim Nollen at Macquarie. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi everyone. Thanks for taking the question. Hi, everyone. Could I ask two questions actually, please? First off, on the recovery that you guys have come through, nice organic growth in 2021. 5% looks like a good number for 2022. I think you say your run rate organic growth after 2023 and on should be 3%-4% including M&A, which I think means you're talking about an organic growth rate of 2.5%-3%, if I'm reading that right from 2023 on.
That, I think a couple of years ago, people might have said that's a nice return to kind of more normalized growth, but I'm wondering now if that's actually almost a conservative number given how strong the recovery has been and the many things that you've done to improve the business. I wonder if you could comment on potential upside to that number from 2023 on. Then secondly, I saw couple of announcements today from Magnite and PubMatic talking about alignments with GroupM about sell-side platform relationships. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about how that might improve programmatic buying market for WPP. Is it about efficiency? Is it about pricing?
What is the role of Xaxis, you know, in this, working with the SSPs and working, you know, with the DSPs that you've worked with for many years, kind of how does the value chain evolve? Thanks.
Okay. John, why don't you talk to the first and then,
Sure. Well, Tim, as you rightly summarized, you know, we haven't changed our medium-term guidance today that we issued initially at the Capital Markets Day in December of 2020, and we reiterated that guidance today. As you rightly say, it does imply a 2.5%-3% like-for-like growth from 2023 onwards. Look, we're not changing that guidance today, but as you highlight, you know, we've had a very strong year in 2021. We projecting a healthy growth in 2022 at 5%. It's really clear that you know, we are investing in many of the growth platforms in our business. We very much talked about investing into Xaxis, you know, Finecast, Choreograph data, for example.
At the same time, you know, just in, yeah, I mean, basically investing in those parts of our business that we know will see strong growth going forward. You know, we're not updating the guidance today, but we are confident the business is moving in the right direction. We also provided the data point around the percentage of our business within our global integrated agencies, excluding GroupM, in terms of the work that they do on commerce experience and technology. Again, that increased from, you know, what would have been 36% of our business two years ago to 38% of our business today. We're clearly making good progress in investing in those parts of the business that we know to be high growth. You know, I guess in that sense, we're confident.
We're confident in our business, we're confident in the growth projections. We're choosing today not to update the guidance for 2023. You can read into that what you like, but we're doing all the right things to build that foundation for growth for the future.
Maybe I'll comment on the GroupM announcement. I mean, I think, you know, really what we're trying to do is get access to premium inventory to improve the transparency of the supply chain and to improve, you know, the cost effectiveness to make sure, you know, more of our clients' investments go towards publishers and less goes to intermediaries. The two announcements we designed to do that, both in sort of broader programmatic media, but also in connected television. You know, I think one, you know, the key benefit of, you know, really aligning in a strategic partnership allows us to, you know, to concentrate our spend, secure, you know, inventory and pricing advantage, you know, for our clients.
You know, those benefits will be felt by, you know, GroupM's clients more broadly, as well as by Xaxis and by Finecast. We have a very strong and growing, you know, connected TV business around the world. I think that, you know, that consolidation, you know, like we see consolidation in many markets should give us, you know, a trading and a competitive advantage that will benefit our clients, as I say, both from a pricing perspective, but also from a transparency, from a technology integration, so we can activate our data in those platforms more effectively and from an efficiency perspective by reducing, you know, the intermediary costs in those markets. That's really the strategic goal.
Great. Thanks, Mark, and thanks, John.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Our next question is from Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Mark, I have a couple for you and Fran. Wishing you all the best. Thanks for all the many years of help. Mark, question we have for you, and we get this all the time, is going to Tim's question. How would you balance, you know, this answer, which is some of the growth in North America is just due to pent-up spending post-pandemic versus a broader need for transformation. When you think about like the long-term, let's say next three to five years, you know, why isn't this the beginning of maybe a structural change in how companies have to go to market versus just simply a catch-up? I wonder when you evaluate your view of North America anyway, you know, what's the sustainability of what we see and what your guide is?
Just taken together, I wanna understand everyone's focused on the same areas of growth. It's obvious. You listen to every call, it's direct marketing, it's programmatic marketing, it's data, it's TV. Can you talk a bit about your interest in more M&A in this space or any type of inflation around people who are experts within those lines of work? Those are my questions. Thanks.
Okay. A complex set of questions I'm trying to get my head around. Look, I think on the first point, I think the recovery we've seen, you know, goes beyond just the cyclical recovery. We guided at 5%-6% for the year. It's come out at 12%. We guide. You know, I think there are many people that thought that if we did well in 2021, we'd be sort of robbing 2022, if you like, and that I don't think is the case. I think we'll expect, you know, a strong 2022, notwithstanding, you know, events in Ukraine. You know, like you, and like the previous question, you know, I think if we could do better in 2023, that would be our aspiration.
The way we look at it today, I think, is to get greater visibility into the year rather than necessarily to make a commitment to do better. I do think that clients' perceptions of the importance of what we do have shifted during the pandemic. I think to some extent, because the market's transformed so quickly, both a result of clients shifting demands and frankly, the actions we took ourselves as WPP, have made us more competitive and accelerated that shift and made us, you know, stronger and better capable of growing in the areas where clients' budgets are shifting, and that's always been our goal.
I do think that our you know WPP's relative underperformance in 2016, 2017, 2018 was not felt by all of the players in the market, and so required us to you know make the investments that we made in creativity and talent to improve the performance of the business. I think you're seeing you know several things in our performance. A more competitive WPP that's performing you know above peer level average. Let me remind you, I think in the middle of 2019, we were close to 3.5% below the peer level average. You know, that's improved to between 1% and 1.5% above the peer level average. That's you know four to five percent delta in performance the business, right? 4.5%-5% delta in performance in the business.
You know, that's a bigger shift for improving our competitive performance. I think the second thing, as you rightly observe, is if the industry players have tended to guide to around 5% for the year, you know, frankly, that's not a bad thing. You know, I'd rather lead a business in an industry where we can all grow at 5%, and we can aspire to do better than one where we're not and perform, you know. I think that there is that. I think clients are looking to, you know, maintain and enhance their spend, you know.
If you look at Brian Wieser has done some work on advertising intensity, and I was looking at the statistics and, you know, I think among packaged goods, you know, advertising promotion as a percent of the sales has increased, you know, in 2017, 2018, 2019, has turned around a little bit. My observation would be that those companies, you know, like a Mondelez, that have tended to increase their ad spend above sales, have done relatively better. Those companies like a L'Orèal, who have a higher degree of advertising intensity, have also done better. Some of those clients, you know, those owned by the more aggressive private equity companies who have cut their spend and spent less, have done worse.
I think that clients, you know, growth is what the market values and transformation is what clients need to do. I think that is good for us. I think turning to the question around, which I think is around sort of relative competitive capability, I think we're pleased with the competitiveness of our offer and the right mix between, you know, creative and media, data and technology. We have a very strong business geographically. In years like the last two, you know, our relative sort of overweight. We're not gonna say overweight relative to the global economy, but overweight relative to our peers outside the U.S. can sometimes be a disadvantage when the U.S. is outperforming the rest of the world.
I think in the long run, it will be a source of competitive advantage. It's certainly important with our clients whose businesses intend to look for growth outside the U.S. I think our ex-U.S. business makes us very strong. I think that we have, you know, really strong competitive business in areas like public relations and public affairs. Look at BCW and Hill & Knowlton and Finsbury Glover Hering. In e-commerce, I think we've made more investments than average. I think again that can be a major driver of growth for WPP. I think the same is true of the content area for GroupM, where we're really strong and interesting kind of content entertainment business. Again, as well, you know, Xaxis and Finecast.
I think we have a number of sort of important growth drivers that should lead to a differentiation in competitive performance, relative competitive performance. I think that turns to M&A, that's where we would like to grow, you know, both M&A and also organic investment. I mean, I think as a company, we'd like to increase the rate of organic investment, where our aspiration is to grow fast organically and be able to develop these capabilities organically, not just by acquisition. The cost of acquisitions actually makes that, you know, even more compelling to do. What we have to do is set up the business in a way where we can leverage the savings we're making through the transformation program that's very important to us, and then reinvest them in the business to grow the top line.
Thank you, Michael. Our next question is from Doug Arthur of Huber Research. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you very much. I'm playing a little bit of catch up here. Fran, you know, suffice to say there's been a few twists and turns in the WPP story over the last decade, and thanks for all your help and guiding us through that, and I'll try to catch up with you later today. Mark, just, you know, I'm sure you covered this in the early morning call, which I've not listened to yet. As you look at this Ukraine situation, I mean, it's like the world just got through a pandemic, more or less, and here we're dealing with like a potential, you know, Cold War return. You sort of look at where China is positioned to Russia, and some potential fallout there.
How do you sort of assess the risk to the 2022 outlook at WPP if this conflagration gets worse in Eastern Europe?
Look, I think it's very hard on the day to answer that question in a way that's, you know, that's truly informative. I just make some observations. You know, one observation is we've been living with this sort of expansion in geopolitical tension for the last 5 -1 0 years. You know, Russia, you know, did invade Crimea, I think, in 2014. We have had geopolitical tension for a number of years. I think my second observation would be Russia is less than 1% of global ad spend, less than 1% of WPP's business. Ukraine is about a sixth of 1% of global ad spend. The direct, let's say, economic impact on our business is not necessarily that great.
I think, you know, our biggest concern, in fact, is for our people there. You rightly say it's really a question of what the broader impact would be, and I think it wouldn't be right for me to really say what that would be. I think it's difficult, you know, for me to say what that would be at this time. I think we're gonna have to see how, you know, events unfold and how people react. What I would say is we go into this year with some confidence in the strength of the recovery underpinned by our budgets for the year, underpinned by the new business that we've won. Notwithstanding events today, you know, the global economy is expanding. You know, inflation is the result of pent-up consumer demand and shortages in a number of markets.
I think that talks to, you know, a very healthy, you know, broadly consumer-led recovery during the year, with challenges around, you know, topics like inflation and supply chain, none of which by themselves are negative to advertising spend. I think we're just gonna have to see, you know, over the next few days and weeks how events unfold and what happens. It's obviously a, you know, a great concern to us, but I think that, you know, notwithstanding that, we still have great confidence in the guidance that we've given for the year.
No. Fair enough. Just on sort of a detail point.
Yeah.
You have a slide on your leadership and new business wins.
Mm-hmm.
Now, Publicis, when they reported a couple weeks ago, had a slide that showed sort of net wins, and had WPP kind of at the bottom, given the loss of a lot of business, as you know, wins versus losses. Can you comment on some of the net gains in new business going into 2022?
Yeah. I still feel that we've had net gains, strong net gains, if you look at our business across media and creative during the year. I haven't analyzed the Publicis chart in great detail, but you know, the R3 numbers look at more than 4,000 accounts across both media and creative. I'm comfortable with the numbers that we've given or that they've looked at as being you know, relatively accurate. Even if you were to sort of take out the retentions, the competitive performance is sufficiently strong that I feel they underpin our budgets pretty well.
Okay, terrific. Congrats on a great end to the year.
Yeah. Thank you. I think just one last point on that. I think, you know, some of these charts have different accounts in different years. If you're, for example, to include, you know, a $1.4 billion account in 2021 or in 2020, depending on who you are, it would lead to a very big swing in competitive performance, which may explain some of the variances of the things that you're looking at, that might help you get your head around it.
No doubt. Thank you.
Thank you, Doug. There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand the call over to Mr. Mark Read for further closing remarks.
All right. Well, thank you very much, everybody. As I said, it's a concerning time, but you know, notwithstanding that, we're very pleased with the you know, the performance of the business. Thank you to all of our clients for their confidence in us, to our people for their hard work, and to you you know, investors and analysts, for your continued interest in the company. John, Peregrine, and I, and Fran, for the rest of the week are here to talk to you. Thanks everybody, very much. Thank you, Fran.