Marketing services groups such as Publicis and Omnicom are looking to acquisitions to drive growth after the sector’s third-quarter results failed to demonstrate improvement in the advertising markets.

Publicis of France showed the best results among the five large agency groups reporting in the past two weeks, with like-for-like revenues declining 7.4 per cent in the three months to September. At the other extreme, Interpublic, a US-based group, posted organic sales down 14.2 per cent.