Mars consolidates global media planning and buying with MediaCom

Mars, Incorporated, the global pet care, confectionery and food business, and one of the world’s biggest advertisers has appointed MediaCom to handle its media planning and buying duties across most of the company’s portfolio. The result follows a competitive pitch against Omnicom, led by Hearts and Science, and Publicis, led by Starcom.

In 2014, Mars consolidated media planning with MediaCom but its media buying business was handled by different agencies in different markets. In the Middle East, Starcom MediaVest – which also handled the media planning business in 2014 – continued to manage its media buying.

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Now, the entire global business – which is worth £1.4 billion globally, according to data from Recma – will be consolidated into MediaCom, including buying for the US and China.

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To deliver on the assignment, MediaCom will work as part of GroupMW, a GroupM solution, tapping into the resources of GroupM and WPP agencies.

MediaCom had previously managed media planning globally for the client and buying in over 20 markets, including Mexico, Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands.

This move is part of Mars’ larger transformation, which has been driving with its marketing and media agenda – looking to build competitive advantage through insights, investment, and innovation. With an ever-changing marketing and retail landscape, Mars have been putting an increased focus on driving value from fast approaches to data, new creative and content models, and ways to incubate innovation.

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“This partnership will be a crucial accelerator in our ambition to be quicker, bolder and even more innovative when it comes to meeting our consumer needs. It brings thought leadership and actionable use of data and insights to meet our media needs,” says Andrew Clarke, chief marketing and customer officer at Mars, in a statement.

“It was impressive to see some of the fresh, challenging approaches from all three of the agencies. It’s helped evolve our thinking throughout the pitch and inspired us to be even bolder in our ambition. GroupM created a custom operating model for us which enables us to put data at the heart of our decision making, drive speed at a global, local and campaign level, and use our resources efficiently,” adds Rob Rakowitz, global media director at Mars.

The full assignment will go into effect on 1 January 2019 and the transition period will run from August until December 2018.