Sign in with Google Jeppe Lehrmann is the chief media and innovation officer and Nicholas Jakobsen is executive activation director at WPP Media Nordics, a media collective built for the AI era, inside the world’s largest agency. Together they help drive long-term business growth for the agency and its clients by embracing AI tools.
Let’s be honest. For a while, the most exciting conversations in marketing weren’t happening in the search department. All the buzz seemed to drift toward social, video, and big brand creative.
Search, the reliable workhorse of digital marketing especially for direct conversations, had become siloed and tactical. It was seen as a channel to manage, not a strategic frontier to explore.
This created a quiet crisis. Our search specialists were spending their days on menial tasks and repetitive reporting, even though agencies are already 35% more advanced than advertisers in deploying AI.
At the same time, our clients were coming to us with increasingly complex questions. They saw a fragmented landscape where people search in many places, like social platforms, retail sites, or even via AI chatbots. This even prompted one of our biggest clients to ask a simple but profound question: “What is the future of search?”
We understood what was happening with consumer behaviour, but we didn’t have the tools to operate in this new reality. We were solving for it piece by piece, client by client.
As an agency, we realised we needed a fundamental shift — not just in our tools, but in our mindset. We had to move from a fear of being behind, where we were driven to move quickly with AI but without a clear strategy, to a Focus on Maximising Advantages (FOMA) mindset, where we can take calculated risks in a proactive approach to innovation. Here’s how we did it.
Introducing the new toolkit for the search landscape
Our goal was to create a framework that could demystify the new search ecosystem. We wanted to build a set of tools that would free our team to do what they do best: analyse, strategise, and solve complex client problems.
We worked closely with Google, combining our understanding of consumer behaviour with their expertise in AI and technology. Instead of relying on a patchwork of third-party systems, we made a strategic decision to build and own our technology. This gives us control over our clients’ data and allows us to create a currency of proprietary insights.
Our approach, which we call Total Search, simplifies the media activation process into three key stages, each supported by a custom-built, AI-powered tool. These purpose-built solutions use the best of Google technology and sit alongside the powerful search tools and agents within WPP Open, ensuring that search practitioners have the precision tool for every need.
- Search Navigator: The first step is always understanding the consumer and the competitive landscape. Search Navigator is our tool for this discovery phase. It allows our teams to conduct deep, cross-channel analysis with a consistent methodology. It helps us answer crucial questions like: What are people really searching for, and where can our clients be a part of that conversation?
- Search Activate: This is where we turn insight into action. We combined several powerful Google tools — from creative assistants to value-based bidding and Vertex AI — into a single, streamlined interface. This engine automates much of the campaign setup and optimisation, enforcing best practices and ensuring a consistent level of quality. It saves our team’s time and allows us to build smarter, more efficient campaigns.
- Search Insights: Reporting is a critical deliverable, but it can be incredibly time-consuming. Our Search Insights tool uses AI to power a sophisticated reporting framework. It empowers a junior specialist to uncover deep insights that would have previously required years of expertise. This doesn’t just make reporting faster; it makes it smarter and more actionable.
The payoff: Deeper insights and a more energised team
Since launching these tools, the changes we have seen have been exciting. Client conversations have shifted from tactical check-ins to strategic workshops. We’re seeing a huge demand from clients who feel they are behind and are looking for a simplified way to navigate this new complexity.
For example, we’ve applied it to a small nonprofit struggling with a drop in engagement because young people were turning to AI and social media for answers instead of its website.
By understanding how young people search today, we built them a new strategy for social and AI search, allowing the charity to build a strategy that meets people where they actually are.
At the same time, we’ve used it to help a global beauty brand to identify and own new categories in a competitive market.
“People feel like rock stars when they talk about Total Search.”
The approach also bridges the gap between paid and organic search. By looking at the total picture, we ensure a brand’s message is consistent and powerful, whether it appears in a traditional search ad or an AI-generated overview.
But the most significant impact has been on our people. By automating the boring stuff, we’ve made their jobs more fulfilling. There’s a renewed excitement around search.
Our specialists are true consultants who understand the interplay between paid and organic search, and how it connects to the broader marketing ecosystem. One of our team members said it best: “People feel like rock stars when they talk about Total Search.” That’s when we knew we were onto something important.
And the business impact is undeniable. We are scaling our framework and tools across our Nordic clients, and the feedback is positive. We are seeing performance uplift and significant time savings on manual tasks, and our approach has been instrumental in navigating this complex transformation within the search landscape.
The future of search is human-led, AI-powered
The search landscape will only continue to evolve, with AI creating a more fluid and unpredictable path from discovery to decision. Staying ahead requires constant adaptation, and our tools will continue to get smarter with every new feature and client case.
But through this whole process, the biggest lesson has been about maximising advantages. I believe the future of our industry isn’t about replacing talented people with AI. It’s about empowering them. Give them the tools to move beyond the search box and reconnect with the strategic, creative, and deeply human work of understanding what people want and helping brands deliver it.
Our focus now is clear: adoption, adoption, adoption. The goal is to deliver value for our clients by rolling out this toolkit globally and building more success cases globally. It’s hard work, but it’s already proving its worth.
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