Omnicom Group Inc.

Best of Relations. You may begin.

Thank you for joining our second quarter 2024 earnings call. With me today are John Wren, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Phil Angelostro, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. On our website, omnicomgroup.com, you'll find a press release and a presentation covering the information that we're going to review today. An archived webcast will be available when today's call concludes. Before we start, I'd like to remind everyone to read the forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial and other information that we've included at the end of our investor presentation. Certain of the statements made today may constitute forward-looking statements, and these statements are our present expectations. Relevant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are listed on our earnings materials and in our SEC filings, including our 2023 Form 10-K. During the course of today's call, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP measures. You can find the reconciliation of these to the nearest comparable GAAP measures in the presentation materials. We will begin the call with an overview of our business from John, then Phil will review our financial results for the quarter. And after our prepared remarks, we will open the line for your questions. I'll now hand the call to John.

Thank you, Greg. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We're pleased to share our second quarter results. Organic growth was very strong at 5.2% for the quarter. The U.S. grew at 6.3%. Across our disciplines, advertising and media, as well as experiential, all had outstanding performances. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA margin was 15.3% for the quarter, which excludes the effect of the severance costs related primarily to the formation of Omnicom production. Non-GAAP adjusted earnings per share, which excludes the after-tax effect of the amortization of acquired and strategic platform intangibles, and the severance costs I just discussed, was $1.95, up 4.8% versus the comparable amount in 2023. Our cash flow continues to support our primary uses of cash, dividends, acquisitions, and share repurchases. and our liquidity and balance sheet remain very strong. We're pleased with our financial results for the quarter and the first half, and are maintaining our full-year organic revenue growth target of between 4% and 5%, and full-year 2024 EBITDA margin target of close to flat with 2023. Phil will cover our results in more detail during his remarks. We made progress across several areas throughout the quarter, We expanded our end-to-end generative AI solution, grew our e-commerce offerings, launched the new production practice area, and secured numerous prominent client wins. Last year at Kahn, we unveiled Omni 3.0, the next generation of Omni powered by GenAI. We also announced first mover collaborations with Adobe, Amazon, Getty, Google, and Microsoft's OpenAI. to gain early access to their large language models. Just over a year later, we're seeing these generative AI platforms, tools, and partnerships being activated throughout every area of our business, from strategy to creative to production, media, and precision marketing. One example is TPWA's launch of Collective AI, a suite of AI tools available to its employees and clients. Collective AI automates and drives efficiencies in basic tasks and provides AI-driven insights, allowing our teams to dedicate more time to helping brands bring distinctive products, services, and experiences to market. Collective AI includes custom applications, leverages TBWA's extensive archives using large language models, and is powered by Omni's first mover, Generative AI Partnerships. Another example is the recent launch of ArtBot AI, our intelligent content orchestration platform. Leveraging models powered by AMI, ArtBot AI assembles clients' digital assets to create and deliver high-quality personalized experiences to consumers at scale, maximizing the value of clients' creative content, as well as the precision and performance of their media investments. These developments highlight the success of our generative AI strategy, which is to provide our agencies Omnicom-wide tools and capabilities that can be used to make our people more effective and our operations more efficient and to drive transformative outcomes for our clients. During the quarter, we also continue to execute our strategic plans to further expand our market-leading retail media and e-commerce capabilities following the acquisition of Flywheel. At Khan, we announced a collaboration with Amazon Ads that enables our media teams to access Amazon's browsing, shopping, and streaming insights to directly tie linear and CTV investments to purchases made on Amazon. Essential to this partnership are Flywheel's products and transactional signals, which are paired with Omni's audience and viewership data. This connection results in more effective marketing investments and increased ROI for our clients. Also at Kong, Flywheel is certified with TikTok Shop, enabling us to connect creator content to product sales so we can measure marketing performance. These additions to our e-commerce offerings follow Omnicom's designation as a leader in the Q2 2024 Forrester Wave for Commerce services. Our prominent position in the market is a testament to the early success of our acquisition of Flywheel, aligned with the omnichannel capabilities of Omnicom Commerce Group and the MarTech consulting capabilities of Omnicom's Precision Marketing Group. In June, we announced the formation of Omnicom Production, a new practice area that combines our global production units. Omnicom Production provides best-in-class content production services throughout a network of studios powered by data-driven insights and the latest technologies. The centralization of our production agencies will improve how we deliver content to clients in a simpler, more integrated, and more effective way. More importantly, Omnicom Production now has the breadth of capabilities to pursue a significant amount of incremental production revenue growth as we consolidate investments in new technologies and products that will provide better, cheaper services to our clients. The group has over 3,000 people across major markets worldwide. Through the combination of Omnicom Content Studios, EG+, the designer Mother Tongue, Link9, and the production departments previously housed within our creative agencies, Sergio Lopez, one of the industry's most awarded creative production leaders, is leading Omnicom production. We're thrilled to have him at the helm. His centralized production capability, coupled with ArtBot AI powered by Omni, provides the industry's most comprehensive and intelligent content solution that delivers on the promise of mass personalization at scale. From gen AI to e-commerce to production, we're continuing to enhance our offerings to meet our clients' needs for better informed strategic insights using AI, creatively inspired content that can be personalized at scale, and investments in targeted media that can be measured through quantifiable outcomes, all delivered in the most efficient and effective manner. Our differentiated capabilities uniquely position us to serve our current and future client needs. Our success is reflected through a series of recent client wins. Omnicom Precision Marketing Group won the Consolidated CRM Business from General Motors. TBWA was awarded the Creative Account for Carnival. AstraZeneca appointed Omnicom as one of its primary oncology network partners. Flywheel had several account wins, including Cannon, Carters, Lipton, and Nestle. Omnicom Media Group won the Media Account for Gap. PhD retained Singapore Airlines and the Volkswagen accounts and won David Yarman's and Priceline's Media Business. Our media group's strong showing was underpinned by two of its agencies, ONG and PHD, being named the top two media agencies at Conn Lions this year. Congratulations to everybody who played a role in these client wins, as well as the award-winning work at Conn. Overall, we're pleased with our first half financial results and our progress on key strategic initiatives. Looking ahead, we expect stronger second half results in line with our full-year organic growth and margin targets. I'm confident we can meet these targets even as we continue to monitor and adapt to changes in the macro environment. I'll now turn the call over to Phil for a closer look at our financial results. Phil?