Mondelez International has joined the slew of advertisers reviewing their global media accounts and poor old Publicis Groupe is once again in the firing line, having to defend Starcom MediaVest’s $200m US business and other bits against Dentsu Aegis. Aegis handles Mondelez in Europe. Omnicom’s PHD loses the £40m UK business. Mondelez is worth more than $1bn globally.
Publicis is already involved for repitches for Coca-Cola and the mighty Procter & Gamble, among others. Aegis has dropped off the Coca-Cola list and, willingly or not, it’s probably better off concentrating on a small mumber of these juicy plums.
Aegis, and main network Carat, have a formidable record in these pitches, winning General Motors and Microsoft globally in recent years; confounding some observers who thought such US giants wouldn’t give their global business to a Japanese-owned company.
As for Publicis it too might have to decide which of these repitches to target and which to let go. Its blue chip traditional media business in the US is in real danger of a wipe-out. Aegis, on the other hand, could become the world’s biggest media buyer, thereby more than justifying Dentsu’s decision to buy it for £3.6bn a few years ago.
