HP Hands Publicis Global Media After a PayPal Exodus

HP named Publicis Media its global media agency of record in June 2026, ending a 17-year run with Omnicom’s PHD. Independent tracker COMvergence put HP’s 2025 media billings at $253 million, after a closed pitch between the two networks that wrapped in spring 2026.

The call landed while HP Inc.’s top marketing seats were empty. Chief executive Enrique Lores and chief marketing officer Antonio Lucio had both left for PayPal, and a former PlayStation and Twitch marketer had just taken the interim CMO job.

Who Signed the $253 Million Media Brief?

HP’s board appointed interim chief executive officer Bruce Broussard on February 3, 2026, the morning after Lores stepped down as president and CEO. Lores, a 36-year HP veteran who had run the company for seven years, left to lead PayPal. Broussard, a director since 2021 and the former chief executive of Humana, was told to keep the plan moving while the board hunted for a permanent boss.

Lucio followed the same path in late April. PayPal hired him as chief marketing and corporate affairs officer on April 29, 2026, in the first big staff reset under Lores. It was Lucio’s second tour at HP. He had already held the global marketing job from 2015 to 2018, then returned for a two-year stint that included the NASA, Real Madrid, and Scuderia Ferrari HP work.

On May 4, 2026, HP named John Koller interim chief marketing and corporate affairs officer. Koller had been senior vice president of marketing at HP since 2022. Before Palo Alto he was CMO at Hard Rock Digital, spent three years as CMO and SVP of global marketing at Twitch, and spent 19 years at Sony PlayStation, finishing as vice president of marketing. He has also worked at Electronic Arts, Anheuser-Busch, and the San Francisco 49ers.

Katie Derkits, HP’s head of crisis and policy comms, confirmed the appointment and pointed to Koller’s print record and the teams he built after 2022. Koller put the acting nature of the job on the record himself.

While the role is interim as HP passes the torch from Antonio, there’s important work ahead.

John Koller, interim chief marketing and corporate affairs officer, HP, on LinkedIn

The closed pitch ended in spring 2026, in the same window as Lucio’s exit and Koller’s promotion. HP, Publicis Groupe, and Omnicom have not said who signed the papers. The appointment is still the first large agency move dated to Broussard’s interim period. Broussard told investors on the August 26, 2026 earnings call that the CEO search was “proceeding well” and that he could not share a timeline.

Publicis Inherits a Desk That Already Buys Digital

The billings figure is the trophy. The brief Publicis Media is walking into is thinner than that number, because HP already took most digital buying off the agency floor. Freddie Liversidge, then HP’s global head of media, said in 2023 that the company bought more than 70% of its media, and 90% of its digital media, in-house, while PHD still handled traditional buys.

That split was not a secret in the last review. When PHD kept the account in 2024, it led strategy, planning, and buying, and HP kept the bulk of digital media inside. COMvergence had already recorded $194 million of global media spend in 2023, with 69% in digital channels. The 2025 billings figure of $253 million is the later yardstick the trade used for the account, not a second size for the same year.

HP started pulling the work inside years before the 2024 retain. Liversidge, then director of digital activation, described how the company brought programmatic advertising in-house, taking tech contracts first so HP owned its own data, then building the buying desk. Publicis Media will not be handed a blank chequebook. It is being asked to sit on top of a client desk that already runs the channels where most of the money goes.

HOW THE HYBRID BRIEF WAS SPLIT

• Digital buying: HP’s in-house team ran the bulk of digital media through the 2024 retain, including programmatic, paid social, and search.
• Agency core: PHD kept strategy, planning, and buying after 2024, with traditional media as the part that still sat outside.
• Spend mix: Digital was 69% of the $194 million COMvergence logged for 2023, so the in-house share sat on the larger half of the pie.
• 2023 in-house claim: Liversidge said that year HP bought more than 70% of all media and 90% of digital media itself.

Publicis has not named which of its front-door brands will run HP. The group’s media offering is built around Spark Foundry, Starcom and Zenith, with buying scale behind them. Until a brand is assigned, the win sits at network level, which is how HP announced it.

PHD’s Run From 2009 to a 2024 Retain

PHD, the Omnicom media agency, first won HP’s global traditional media business in 2009. The relationship widened in 2017, when PHD added global digital duties. For a long stretch that looked like a full AOR. Then HP built the internal desk, and the 2024 defense left PHD as the planner on a client that had already taken the digital buttons back.

HOW THE HP MEDIA BRIEF SHRANK THEN MOVED

1. 2009: PHD wins HP’s global traditional media business, the start of the Omnicom run.
2. 2017: PHD adds global digital media duties on top of the traditional remit.
3. 2019: HP begins taking programmatic contracts in-house so it owns the data and the DSP seats.
4. 2023: Liversidge says HP buys more than 70% of media and 90% of digital media internally, with PHD still on traditional.
5. 2024: PHD retains the account for strategy, planning, and buying; HP keeps most digital execution inside.
6. February 3, 2026: Broussard becomes interim CEO after Lores leaves for PayPal.
7. Spring 2026: A closed pitch between Publicis Media and Omnicom Media Group ends.
8. April 29, 2026: Lucio joins PayPal as chief marketing and corporate affairs officer.
9. May 4, 2026: Koller is named interim CMO.
10. June 11, 2026: Publicis Media is named global media agency of record; PHD is to transition the work.

Seventeen years is a long hold in media. The last two of those years were already a hybrid job, which is why the 2026 review was a two-shop closed pitch rather than a wide bake-off. Omnicom was invited back. It still lost.

Omnicom Lost HP and Still Took Adidas

Publicis did not need HP to prove it can win technology media. In April 2026 it took Microsoft’s global media account without an open pitch. COMvergence valued that remit at $1.35 billion in 2025 billings, several times HP. The same month, Omnicom took IBM’s global media account, which COMvergence put at $279 million in 2025 billings, after WPP declined to defend.

PHD’s year did not collapse with HP. Omnicom later won Adidas’s global media account, which COMvergence put at $559 million in 2025 billings, in a three-way against Publicis and WPP, and assigned it to PHD. That win put Adidas in the same network as Nike, which runs global integrated media at Initiative with PMG. COMvergence’s H1 2026 new-business barometer then put Omnicom Media at $3.3 billion of new billings, with PHD first among media agencies worldwide on the back of Adidas, Roku, SkyShowtime, and Xiaomi.

THE 2026 MEDIA MOVES AROUND HP

The scoreboard is why the HP loss reads as a people story more than a balance-sheet event for Omnicom. The holding company had already closed its Interpublic deal on November 26, 2025, and PHD was adding other global names in the same half-year it was told to hand HP over. Publicis, for its part, was already on a tear. COMvergence’s final 2025 billings report said Publicis Media reached $62.4 billion in global billings, up 12.8% and up $7 billion, the fastest rise among the big groups, after $10 billion of new-business billings in 2025.

HP Is Using Media to Sell Printing by Subscription

The work attached to the brief is not a generic PC launch reel. HP has been putting media weight behind printing as a subscription, including Instant Ink and the All-In Plan, which bundles a printer, ink, and support for a monthly fee. One commercial restaged the printer-smashing scene from the 1999 film Office Space as a pitch for that shift.

That is a different media problem from the old cartridge aisle. The ads have to sell a recurring plan, not a box on a shelf, and they have to do it in the same digital channels HP already buys for itself. Publicis Media’s job, if the hybrid model holds, is to plan and connect that work globally while HP’s own desk still presses most of the buy buttons.

Koller’s print background is the one internal clue HP offered when it named him. Derkits said he had “driven measurable impact across print” since 2022 and built channel partnerships. A CMO who came up through PlayStation, Twitch, and Hard Rock Digital is now the person whose team has to keep those subscription ads in market while a new agency learns the in-house stack.

Neither Side Has Said Why the Account Moved

HP, Publicis Groupe, and Omnicom declined to explain the switch when the appointment became public on June 11, 2026. No start date was given. No Publicis agency brand was named. PHD was described only as the shop that would transition the work.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The winner: Publicis Media is HP’s global media agency of record after a closed pitch against Omnicom.
• The size: COMvergence logged $253 million of HP media billings in 2025, the figure used for the account.
• The incumbent: PHD had held the business since 2009 and kept a strategy and planning role in 2024.
• The bench: Lores and Lucio had left for PayPal, Broussard was interim CEO, and Koller was named interim CMO on May 4, 2026.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The reason: None of the three companies has given a public explanation for dropping PHD.
• The signer: It is not public whether Lucio closed the pitch, Koller signed it, or Broussard’s office did.
• The brand: Publicis has not said whether Starcom, Spark Foundry, Zenith, or a bespoke unit will run HP.
• The date: No go-live date for Publicis Media, and no date for PHD to step off, has been released.

PHD is still moving the files. Publicis Media is still unnamed at brand level. HP’s marketing department is still working under an interim title last confirmed in May, and the board is still looking for a permanent chief executive. The $253 million account changed holding companies in that gap, on a client that already buys most of its own digital ads.