Item 1. Business

Our Business

Omnicom is a strategic holding company providing advertising, marketing and corporate communications services to clients through our branded networks and agencies around the world. We operate in a highly competitive industry and compete against other global, national and regional advertising and marketing services companies, as well as technology, social media and professional services companies. The proliferation of media channels, including the rapid development and integration of interactive technologies and media, has fragmented consumer audiences targeted by our clients. These developments make it more complex for marketers to reach their target audiences in a cost-effective way, causing them to turn to global service providers such as Omnicom for a customized mix of advertising and marketing services designed to optimize their total marketing expenditure.

On a global, pan-regional and local basis, our networks and agencies provide a comprehensive range of services in the following fundamental disciplines: Advertising, Precision Marketing, Commerce & Brand Consulting, Experiential, Execution & Support, Public Relations and Healthcare. Advertising includes creative services across digital and traditional media, strategic media planning and buying, and data analytics services. Precision Marketing includes digital and direct marketing, digital transformation and data and analytics. Commerce & Brand Consulting services include brand consulting, strategy and research, and retail ecommerce. Experiential marketing services include live and digital events and experience design and execution. Execution & Support includes field marketing, sales support, digital and physical merchandising and point-of-sale, as well as other specialized marketing and custom communications services. Public relations services include corporate communications, crisis management, public affairs, and media and media relations services. Healthcare includes advertising and media services to global healthcare and pharmaceutical clients.

Our business model was built and continues to evolve around our clients. Our fundamental business principle is that our clients’ specific marketing requirements are the central focus of how we structure our service offerings and allocate our resources. This client-centric business model requires that multiple agencies within Omnicom collaborate in formal and informal virtual client networks utilizing our key client matrix organization structure. This collaboration allows us to cut across our internal organizational structures to execute our clients’ marketing requirements in a consistent and comprehensive manner. We use our client-centric approach to grow our business by expanding our service offerings to existing clients, moving into new markets and obtaining new clients. In addition to collaborating through our client service models, our agencies and networks collaborate across internally developed technology platforms. Annalect, our proprietary data and analytics platform, serves as the strategic resource for all of our agencies and networks to share when developing client service strategies across our virtual networks. Omni, our people-based precision marketing and insights platform, identifies and defines personalized consumer experiences at scale across creative, media and other disciplines.

Driven by our clients’ continuous demand for more effective and efficient marketing activities, we strive to provide an extensive range of advertising, marketing and corporate communications services through various client-centric networks that are organized to meet specific client objectives. Our service offerings include:

Certain business trends have impacted our business and industry. These trends include clients increasingly expanding the focus of their brand strategies from national markets to pan-regional and global markets and integrating traditional and non-traditional marketing channels, as well as utilizing new communications technologies and emerging digital platforms. As clients increase their demands for marketing effectiveness and efficiency, they tend to continue to consolidate their business within one or a small number of service providers in the pursuit of a single engagement covering all consumer touch points. We have structured our business around these trends. We believe that our key client matrix organization structure approach to collaboration and integration of our services and solutions provides a competitive advantage to our business in the past and we expect this to continue over the medium and long term. Our key client matrix organization structure facilitates superior client management and allows for greater integration of the services required by the world’s largest brands. Our overarching strategy is to continue to use our virtual client networks to grow our business relationships with our largest clients by serving them across our networks, disciplines and geographies.

As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy moderated, we experienced improvement in our business in 2021 as compared to 2020. In 2021, revenue increased $1,118.3 million, or 8.5%, compared to 2020. The increase in revenue primarily reflects increased client spending in all our disciplines and across all our geographic areas compared to the prior year and the strengthening of most foreign currencies, primarily the British Pound and the Euro, against the U.S. Dollar. The increase in revenue year-over-year was impacted by a reduction in acquisition revenue, net of disposition revenue, primarily due to the sale of a specialty media business in the second quarter of 2021.

Global economic conditions may continue to be volatile as long as the COVID-19 pandemic remains a public health threat. We expect global economic performance and the performance of our businesses to vary by geography and discipline until the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy subsides.

We continually evaluate our portfolio of businesses to identify areas for investment and acquisition opportunities, as well as to identify non-strategic or underperforming businesses for disposition. For information about our acquisitions and dispositions, see Item 7, Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, or MD&A, - Acquisitions and Goodwill and Notes 5 and 13, respectively, to the consolidated financial statements. In the three years ended December 31, 2021, none of our acquisitions or dispositions, individually or in the aggregate, was material to our results of operations or financial position.

The various components of our business, including revenue by discipline and geographic area, and material factors that affected us in 2021, are discussed in the MD&A.

Our Clients

Our clients operate in virtually every sector of the global economy. In many cases, multiple agencies or networks serve different brands, product groups or both within the same client. For example, in 2021 our largest client represented 3.2% of revenue and was served by approximately 110 of our agencies. Our 100 largest clients, many of which represent the largest global marketers, represented approximately 54% of revenue and were each served, on average, by approximately 52 of our agencies.

Government Regulations

We are subject to various local, state and federal laws and regulations in the countries in which we conduct business. Compliance with these laws and regulations in the normal course of business did not have a material effect on our business, results of operations or financial position. Additional information regarding the impact of government regulations on our business is included in Item 1A. Risk Factors - Regulatory Risks.

Human Capital Resources/Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)

Our employees are our most important assets. We believe a critical component to our success depends on the ability to attract, develop and retain key personnel. The skill sets of our workforce across our agencies and within each discipline are similar. Common to all is the ability to understand a client’s brand or product and its selling proposition and to develop a unique message to communicate the value of the brand or product to the client’s target audience, whether through traditional channels or emerging

digital platforms. Recognizing the importance of this core competency, we support and develop our employees through training and development programs that build and strengthen employees’ leadership and professional skills.

Human capital management strategies are developed collectively by senior management, including the management teams of the Company’s networks and practice areas, and are overseen by the Company’s Board of Directors. We are committed to efforts that ensure that the workplace is equitable, ethical, fosters an inclusive work environment across our global workforce and respects human rights. Our social and human capital management priorities include, among other things, adopting codes of conduct and business ethics, providing competitive wages and benefits, comprehensive training programs, succession planning, promoting diversity and inclusion and implementing technology platforms that prioritize the achievement of systemic equity throughout the Company. Our environmental sustainability initiatives focus on efficiency of office space, energy usage and travel.

In connection with our ESG efforts, we are a signatory to the UN Global Compact, a principle-based framework to encourage businesses and firms worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies. We support the UN Sustainable Development Goals, a collection of global goals designed to be a blueprint to achieve a better, more inclusive and sustainable future. Also, we are committed to joining the Science-Based Target Initiative (SBTi), which publicly audits companies on their emissions reduction efforts

At December 31, 2021, we employed approximately 71,700 people worldwide. The United States, our largest employee base, employed approximately 22,600 people. None of our regular employees in the United States are represented by a labor union. The approximate number of employees in our principal geographic regions at December 31, 2021 were 29,800 in the Americas, 28,800 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, or EMEA, and 13,100 in Asia Pacific. Certain employees in a few countries outside the United States, primarily in Europe, are represented by work councils. See the MD&A for a discussion of the effect of salary and related costs on our results of operations.

Information About Our Executive Officers

At February 1, 2022, our executive officers were:

Mr. Wren was named Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer in May 2018 and previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer from 1997 to May 2018. Mr. Simm was named President and Chief Operating Officer in November 2021 and previously served as Chief Executive Officer of Omnicom Media Group for more than 20 years. Ms. Tarlowe was named Senior Vice President and Treasurer in May 2019 and previously served as Senior Vice President and Treasurer of Avis Budget Group from 2007 until April 2019. All other executive officers have held their present position for at least five years. Additional information about our directors and executive officers will appear in our definitive proxy statement, which is expected to be filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, in March 2022.

Available Information

We file annual, quarterly and current reports, proxy statements and other information with the SEC. Documents we file with the SEC are available free of charge on our website at http://investor.omnicomgroup.com, as soon as reasonably practicable after such material is filed with the SEC. The information included on or available through our website is not part of this or any other report we file with the SEC. Any document that we file with the SEC is available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.