Challenger marcom groups have found it difficult to scale beyond a certain point because of media.
Building a biggish media agency from scratch these days is nigh on impossible and independent agencies of much note are thin on the ground – Horizon in the US is the obvious exception, PE-backed Brainlabs maybe another. MightyHive’s impact at Sir Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital has hardly been mighty (although it never was a conventional media agency) while Walk-In Media at MSQ has a number of clients although no real biggies.
David Jones’ Brandtech Group bought Jellyfish last year from France’s Fimalac (which became a Brandtech shareholder) and installed former Mindshare boss Nick Emery as boss. The result looks pretty much like Brainlabs and now it’s won high profile Oatly from Omnicom’s PHD.
Oatly’s marketing budget is around $40m across 40 markets and its profile gives Jellyfish the opportunity to make a medium-sized splash. Oatly operates in 40 markets.
Oatly media director Sarah Sutton says: “We are on a mission to inject more speed, agility and creative innovation into our media planning and execution. We are thrilled to have Jellyfish working alongside us to support and guide us on this journey.”
Speed, agility and innovation are what PHD used to be known for although now it’s very large. So a challenge for Jellyfish as it sets out to challenge the media agency hierarchy.
