Mars shifts global media planning from Starcom to Mediacom
Mars has shifted its media planning account from Starcom to Mediacom as part of a global alignment to streamline its business.
Today Mediacom confirmed its has picked up the planning element of the account in Australia, a welcome boost for the local division which is in the midst of internal audits after irregularities were discovered in TV reporting figures for three of its clients.
Starcom will still handle the buying on the account.
US trade magazine Adweek broke the news overnight, with a Mars spokesman saying: “With the constant change in the media landscape, this model will allow us to better collaborate across our global business to drive efficiency, effectiveness, and coordination in our media planning.
“This change brings our planning model in line with our existing global creative agency structure, and will allow us to further focus media as a growth driver.”
The move applies to all four Mars divisions – Petcare, food, chocolate and Mars-Wrigley in Australia.
Mars’ brands include Pedigree, Whiskas, Uncle Ben’s, Masterfoods, Malteasers, Milky Way and Skittles.
The group had an estimated main media spend of $43.2m between November 2013 and October 2014.
……I bet Mediacom are absolutely stoked!
“Default! Default!”
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How does having the planning and implementation of ones media, separated across different companies, achieve efficiency, effectiveness or coordination? The ‘landscape’ is riddled with opportunities both short and long term – if you cant walk over to your planner to discuss opps or stalled negotiations then you would need a very strong affiliation between the media companies – not usual though
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We all know when clients switch because of “efficiency”, that means they picked the cheapest agency. Another step closer to making the agency biz extinct!
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What a weird set up. May sound good on paper, but practically it will be a nightmare for all involved…
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