So Good: Initiative lands Sanitarium media account
Mediabrands’ Initiative has won Sanitarium’s media account, which includes brands Weet-Bix, Up ‘n’ Go and So Good following a competitive pitch, Mumbrella can reveal.
The account was previously held by Slingshot, which won it in 2017, and includes strategy, planning and buying across all traditional media.
Initiative lands the Sanitarium media account
Managing director of the media agency, Sam Geer told Mumbrella that it is excited to work with a “genuinely iconic stable of brands that are really engrained in our lives”.
“The company’s been absolutely smashing for 125 years,” continued Geer, “and it’s just quite rare for such a traditional and well-established company to then launch new to-market players like So Good, as the first nut-based milk in Australia.”
“It seems like everything they touch turns to gold.”
Jessica Manihera, ANZ head of marketing at Sanitarium said: “We are already wholly impressed with Initiative’s strategic thinking, collaboration, and approach to our brief. Their commitment to transformative thinking impressed us and we look forward to working with the team on how this translates through their systems and processes to take our business forward.
“We felt in safe hands right from the chemistry session and their energy was evident from the get-go. We are looking forward to achieving great things together.”
Jessica Manihera
Geer said whenever the agency is pitching it has two key things to look for.
“Are they doing really well, and therefore is it a great business that we want to partner with? And do they have a problem or challenge we can help solve and transform the business? Those are really the two things that allow you to do your best work as an agency partner.”
“They have so much market momentum and that was something we wanted to be part of, and we felt like we could elevate that thinking when it comes to media.”
Geer added: “You can’t call a company that has been growing for 125 years ‘lucky’. The amount of clarity the marketers have at Sanitarium has blown us away in our first week of working together.”
“They are ubiquitous parts of culture, whether its the Weet-Bix kids, or ‘How good? So Good’, the memory structures are already embedded in people’s heads, and the frequency of breakfast isn’t going anywhere, people are still eating these products!”
He said Initiative’s recent success is partly owed to the fact the agency has given itself the ability to say “no”.
“We don’t just take every pitch that comes to market. We look really clearly at: one, is this a client that is going to value our thinking, and pay for that thinking? Two, do we have really good chemistry? And three, do they actually want to do the kind of work we want to become famous for?”
“We can’t wait to embed Sanitarium in our ambitious way of thinking, doing, and achieving and help take their brands to the next level,” added the agency’s CEO, Mel Fein.
Initiative recently retained energy company Jemena’s media duties – an account that the agency has successfully defended three times so far. It also won EnergyAustralia’s media remit in October 2022.
Yesterday, Initiative appointed a new national strategy director, Tom Dodds, who joined from the agency’s client IAG.
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Calum Jaspan was news editor at Mumbrella, based in Melbourne. He was also the producer and host of the Mumbrellacast. He left Mumbrella in May 2023.
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