Media Buying Briefing: Handicapping the fight to win over Coca-Cola’s North American media

The red-colored beverage and snack giant is said to have decided to keep the rest of its global media work where it is, with WPP (and with Dentsu continuing to handle Japan and South Korea). But the North American media remains up for grabs, and it’s said Omnicom and Dentsu are duking it out to win this key market. WPP didn’t even try to win it back, choosing to focus instead on the rest of the world it controls. 

So which of these two holdcos stands a better chance to win this North American media prize — wooing a company that must feel quite betrayed by its last suitor? The odds appear to be in Omnicom’s favor. It’s the largest holdco in the world, and its North American media billings, according to Comvergence, stand at $35.8 billion, more than three times Dentsu’s, which are $10.2 billion. 

This is one of the key pieces to Coke’s ultimate decision if one is to believe that Coca-Cola generally eschews the use of principal media (for the record, Coca-Cola declined to speak with Digiday for this story). If that’s the case, then buying clout on a larger scale will still help the marketer secure better rates without having to resort to principal. 

Another feather in Omnicom’s cap is a team that to this day continues to service PepsiCo’s media needs, even as the blue-colored beverage giant prepares its move to Publicis. So Omnicom ostensibly could be up and running with relatively less effort than it would take to build a North American media team from the ground up.

“If they don’t just hand this to Omnicom, then they’re going to need their head examined,” bluntly declared one consultant who’s been observing the soap opera from a near distance. But this consultant believes whatever happens now — and it’s widely believed that Coke will not dawdle with selecting its new North American media agency —will be a temporary situation. 

“I think everything feels like the interim of things, where it would make sense to give Omnicom the North American business and then pitch the whole lot again in 12 months’ time,” said the consultant. “This feels like a process that’s not over yet. The music will continue to play, and musical chairs will carry on for Coke’s media business for at least the next 18 months. Most likely, it will all go to Omnicom in 1.5 years’ time, but in the meantime, WPP have got to try and get their claws back into the international business.”

Finally, Omnicom needs a win, after Publicis stole away its client of nearly 30 years. While it may be No. 1 in size among holdcos, the betrayal by PepsiCo doesn’t look good for it (even as it also isn’t a good look for Publicis either, given its desertion of Coke). Which is why the money seems to be leaning Omnicom’s way. 

And yet, Dentsu has a chance to score a big win, which current global CEO Takeshi Sano could use to show he means business in any market that’s not Japan. And one can safely argue North America is a market that’s going to draw the attention of other potential clients if you can win here. 

For one, it already services Coke’s business in mother market Japan as well as South Korea, although Japan is unlike any other market in the world, so to most observers, that counts less. But if relationships are still a part of wining business, Sano and co. have an in that Omnicom doesn’t. 

And here’s another in: Chrissie Hanson, the former CEO of OMD (which ran the PepsiCo business for Omnicom) who’s now global brand president of Denstu’s Carat. More important than her CEO tenure at OMD, she ran strategy, which put her across Pepsi’s business a lot. It seems Coke could use the help of an exec familiar with its main competitor’s strategy. 

Is there any chance Coca-Cola might spurn both — it may be a bit leery of holding companies at the moment — and go with a large independent? A second consultant who’s been watching the spectacle unfold mused that Horizon Media actually has the size, while PMG might be a dark horse candidate as well. 

No one who actually is involved in the pitching at the moment is talking. But one thing is certainly clear: Everyone is watching to see what happens next. 

Color by numbers

Meta may form one leg of the digital triopoly (with Google and Amazon) when it comes to attracting media and marketing dollars, but is it worth the spend? Online ad management firm Metricool analyzed more than 600,000 campaigns representing $471 million in ad spend, and found advertisers aren’t getting a return that seems worth it. Here’s why: 

• Average spend per campaign rose 47% YoY, from $490 to $718, while sales campaign ROAS fell from 5.48x to 4.57x.
• Comparatively, TikTok’s traffic costs $0.03 per click vs. $0.07 on Meta, and its cost per lead fell 33% YoY to $2.69, while Meta’s rose 14% to $6.00.

Takeoff & landing

• Dentsu made some high-level executives moves at its Carat unit, naming Sarah Stringer to global chief strategy & innovation officer, up from global chief of innovation for Dentsu’s Media Practice. Meanwhile, Bram Meuleman took on global chief planning & intelligence officer duties, having been global head of strategy for Carat. Both report to Carat’s global brand president Chrissie Hanson.
• Stagwell made its own high-level changes at Assembly last week, naming Liz Rutgersson its global and North American CEO, weeks after she left her North American CEO post at Dentsu’s iProspect. The move shifts Jill Kelly out of the North American CEO post (she will leave Stagwell), while Rick Acampora, who had been global CEO, is launching a new barter unit within the parent company called Tradewell. Finally, Connie Chan adds CEO of Assembly APAC to her current duties as chief growth officer of Stagwell APAC.
• Account moves: Dentsu expanded its media agency work for Netflix from the U.K. to all of EMEA, and plans to create a new unit called Dentsu ENTS to service it … Omnicom shop TCA picked up media agency duties for Accredited Debt Relief (ADR) … M+C Saatchi Performance will handle talent awareness and acquisition efforts in the U.S. for mining equipment firm Komatsu.
• Personnel moves: WPromote x Giant Spoon hired Kendra Mazey as vp, managing director, coming over from Publicis Collective where she was svp of strategy … Minneapolis-based independent Collective Measures tapped Rachel Hipschman to a new role of senior director of growth, coming over from Known where she had been director of business development. 

Direct quote

“The media and commerce ecosystem is only becoming more complex — AI is automating everything. We know that AI is collapsing the funnel. The platforms that used to be organized in upper funnel, mid funnel conversion are now all collapsed into one single event where everything can happen everywhere. Even something that was the bastion of clarity, like live sports, is experiencing amazing fragmentation to the point where we as consumers don’t know where to watch a game. You need you need an agent to tell you where to watch a game.”

—Slavi Samardzija, global chair of media & commerce at Stagwell, in the context of executive moves he made at Assembly last week (see above).

Speed reading

• Seb Joseph, Jess Davies and Krystal Scanlon together covered the impact of Judge Brinkema’s remedies judgments out of Google’s antitrust trial, including the winners and losers. 
• Missed Digiday’s fall Publisher Summit last week? Here are some key conversations that happened, as well as some breakout sessions from Axios and Reuters.
• Alyssa Mercante dug into why CFOs will still have a hard time green lighting creator budgets in marketing, despite the IAB’s efforts to bring order to that growing world via its Creatorfronts. 
• Sam Bradley looked into the ups and downs of Formula 1’s latest season, which features a new media partner in Apple TV but also had to deal with canceled races. 
• Bradley also wrote about how AI-driven search las led CMOs to argue for bigger media budgets and increased upper-funnel activity.