Dentsu Aegis retains $2.3bn Diageo global media
Another big media review has ended but this time with no dramatic changes: Dentsu Aegis has retained the bulk of spirits giant Diageo’s $2.3bn global media account including the $800m or so it spends in the US.
WPP’s Mindshare will handle India and South Africa with Publicis Groupe handling Australia.
Diageo has also been shuffling its creative agencies recently. WPP’s Grey lost its last Diageo brands in the US, Crown Royal and Buchanan’s, to Anomaly which already handled Captain Morgan and Johnnie Walker (below).
Diageo says it spoke to four media agency groups, the other presumably being Omnicom. Omnicom’s new Hearts & Science agency has launched in life with about $7bn in US billings from AT&T and P&G.
Dentsu, driven by media operation Dentsu Aegis, has arguably been the best performing of all the big networks over the last few years although it had a fair amount of ground to make up on its rivals. It hasn’t won a great deal in the 18 month ‘Mediapalooza’ round of big media reviews so hanging on to what it has takes on even more significance.
Dentsu Aegis CEO Jerry Buhlmann has been splashing the cash recently with a number of biggish data-focussed acquisitions, most notably $1.5bn US agency Merkle. So keeping the likes of Daigeo is crucial. Its other big global media account is General Motors which, so far anyway, has stood aloof from Mediapalooza.