Gillette invites pitches for £400m media task

Gillette is reviewing its global media buying and planning business, worth around £400m, as part of a programme to cut supplier costs and redirect the money into brands. The account is worth £19.4m in the UK, where it is handled by OMD.

In addition to its current roster media agencies, Omnicom's OMD and Interpublic's Universal McCann, the company has invited MindShare to pitch for the account.

MindShare's WPP sibling, Ogilvy & Mather, handles advertising for Gillette's Duracell battery brand.

The review is part of a wider 'strategic sourcing initiative' by Gillette.

A Gillette spokesman said: "It is an internal assessment process, not a formal review. We've asked our existing agencies for info about their organisation, capabilities and resources. We've included MindShare because we've had a longstanding relationship with Ogilvy & Mather."

He added that while the review would take "a few months", a result was likely sometime in the third quarter, and stressed that creative relationships would be unaffected.

The review is being administered by a global Gillette team headed by vice-president, marketing services Dick Cantwell and including European media director Michael Winkler.

Gillette announced its strategic sourcing initiative last June. Shortly afterwards it consolidated its £56m global oral care account, including the Braun and Oral-B brands, into BBDO Worldwide, which already held the Gillette and Right Guard accounts. In the UK, that move shifted the £3.3m account from IPG's Lowe Lintas into Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO.

The initiative, led by chief executive James Kilts, is designed to put savings from agency and third-party suppliers into marketing core brands.

Kilts said at the time that the assessment was meant to help bring Gillette's adspend in line with that of competitors after a slide to 5.8% of global gross sales, and break what he called the "circle of doom, in which disappointing sales of new products push marketing expenditure ever lower. Kilts also promised to use savings to correct an imbalance in spend which favoured advertising over promotions.

With two-thirds of Gillette's media business, OMD is the most exposed of the agencies involved.

Market Reports

Get unprecedented new-business intelligence with access to ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s new Advertising Intelligence Market Reports.

Find out more

Enjoying ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s content?

 Get unlimited access to ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s premium content for your whole company with a corporate licence.

Upgrade access

Looking for a new job?

Get the latest creative jobs in advertising, media, marketing and digital delivered directly to your inbox each day.

Create an alert now

Partner content