Nestlé dumps Wavemaker for UM
WPP’s Wavemaker has lost Nestlé Oceania’s media account to UM, the food and beverage giant announced this morning.
Mediabrands-Thrive UM will manage the account which was held by Wavemaker for the past three years.
A selection of Nestle’s brands
Danny Bass, CEO Australia & New Zealand for IPG Mediabrands said in a statement: “After a very thorough four-month process, we are delighted to be awarded the Nestle business within the Mediabrands Group, powered by THRIVE UM.
“We have all worked tirelessly to ensure the very best for Nestle, an iconic business with ambitions that match ours, to be the best we can be and evolve into the future. We will be working closely with them all to ensure a smooth and swift transition.”
Nestlé opened the account to pitches in February which sees the winner manage brands including KitKat, Allen’s, Nescafe, Milo, Maggi, Uncle Tobys, Nespresso and Purina.
Incumbent Wavemaker had held the account since GroupM’s MEC won the account in 2014. The agency was renamed to Wavemaker following a merger with Maxus in 2017.
Peter Vogel, CEO of Wavemaker Australia & NZ, said of losing the account: “We’re proud of the work and media value we created for Nestlé over the past three and a half years, and I believe we are leaving the business in a stronger position as a result.
“It’s always disappointing to say goodbye to a client but we wish Nestlé a happy and productive relationship with its new media agency. I’d also like to thank our hugely talented and committed team at Wavemaker for their hard work and collaboration on the Nestlé business over the years and during the pitch.”
Nestlé director of Communications & Marketing Services Therese Kallie said in a statement: “The agency review follows global best practice – ensuring that we continue to re-examine how we manage our media investment, which moves beyond the old world of strategy, planning and buying – to address the challenges posed by an attention poor target audience and the dynamic, ever changing media landscape.
“After careful deliberation, we have appointed Mediabrands-Thrive UM to partner with us. Their response demonstrated a great understanding of our business as well as the complexity of the current landscape and included broad thinking around building digital platforms, brand experience opportunities and personalised consumer data use to help us accelerate our brands’ performance.
“We would like to extend our thanks to Wavemaker and Mediacom for their excellent collaboration over the past few years. There have been some great achievements delivered by both agencies.”
that headline is absolutely classless. the team at wavemaker would be devastated. Rather than focus on the great work UM have done in winning the account, you chose to rub salt in the wounds of the outgoing agency. Not cool
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Remember that time Group M was the biggest holding group in Australia and they had clients… those were the days.
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I know right… this is an industry not a high school.
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Good luck UM with the media price promises made
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When did UM rebrand to ThriveUM?
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Agree – tasteless and a distortion of the truth, unless Nestle handled the pitch inappropriately and did in fact ‘dump’ Wavemaker
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They’ve just lost P&G to starcom as well.
Local market decision. That’s an enormous amount of business they’ve lost over the past few years..
P&G, Unilever, VW, Audi, Jaguar Landrover, GSK, CUB, Allianz , Pizza Hut
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One wonders how long until Groupm merges two more agencies..
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The headline is completely inappropriate. Anyone who has been involved in defending and/or new business pitches knows it is an extremely draining process and I’m sure even the client would have felt the pressure of making a final decision. Rather than simply making a play for an attention grabbing headline, maybe try celebrating a great industry that no doubt makes up a significant portion of your readers.
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Jaguar Land Rover, Arnotts, HSBC all lost this year…and now Nestle! Wouldn’t want to be at Group M right now
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Is the P&G thing public knowledge?
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Add Revlon to that list…although most would argue that isn’t a loss!
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What a bunch of bloody whingers. No doubt the same people who like to put the boot in about the magazine industry. Tasteless and a distortion of the truth? Lol. Welcome to the media.
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