Campaign’s Gideon Spanier reckons that Sainsbury’s is reversing its decision to move its amalgamated £115m media account (Sainsbury’s and Argos) into The&Partnership’s m/Six Media and sticking with long-time incumbent PHD.
The business moved to m/Six at the start of the year but Omnicom-owned PHD appealed, using a Sainsbury’s supplier appeals channel, and seems to have prevailed. Omnicom’s AMV BBDO also lost the Sainsbury’s creative account to Wieden+Kennedy last year.
If true this is all very peculiar; who plans and buys your media is a bit different to who supplies the cabbages.
Usually these last minute changes of heart mean that someone has come in with a spectacularly cheap late deal. But the Sainsbury’s review is stated to be “procedural.”
PHD’s offer, maybe a revised one, could still be cheaper of course. m/Six’s media price negotiations are carried out by WPP’s GroupM (WPP owns 49 per cent of The&Partnership). PHD uses Omnicom’s Opera.
Media is a smoky business these days. But if Sainsbury’s has changed its mind in such a way – by seemingly ignoring its own rules – it invites the question: does anyone there know what they’re doing?
