Sorrell: Olympic Opening Ceremony was great advert for Britain

The chief executive of WPP said the opening ceremony devised by Trainspotting director Danny Boyle was a “thinking man’s” ceremony that had done “a lot of good” for the country’s image overseas. “Whatever the controversies were, it was the thinking man or woman’s ceremony. If the object of advertising is to get yourself talked about, it worked.”

But he warned that the country has not seen as much of an uplift in spending around the games as hoped.

“It hasn’t been as strong as people thought... not by a massive amount but people thought there was going to be short-term money coming in,” Sir Martin said.

Speaking at the British Business Conference running alongside the Olympics, he added that WPP has been relatively sheltered from the short-fall because of a bigger than expected spend on political campaigns in the US, putting the group’s revenues at between 2pc and 3pc ahead of last year.

He also admitted that WPP’s remuneration committee had made a “mistake” by not talking more to shareholders about the firm’s pay policy ahead of its anual general meeting. Nearly 60pc of the shareholder vote went against the report. Sir Martin said yesterday that the firm was “in the process” of making adjustments to his near-£13m a year pay package.