General Mills Conducting U.S. Agency Review


Food processing giant General Mills is conducting a closed U.S. creative agency review, the company confirmed Thursday. Incumbents include Interpublic’s McCann and Publicis Groupe’s Saatchi & Saatchi among others. 

The firm has focused on trimming and optimizing its ad and media budget for the past several years, and the review is seen as an effort to reduce the number of agencies on its U.S. roster. 

The company has also been allocating more dollars to digital. It spent $754.4 million on media and advertising in its last fiscal year, according to its annual report issued in June. That was down about 8% from the prior year. The decline followed decreases of 5% and 6% during the previous two years. 

A spokesman for General Mills issued this statement: 

“As a standing practice we do not comment on details of agency reviews. However, we can confirm that General Mills has embarked on a closed review of its creative and production/content agencies in the U.S. We have a responsibility to ensure we have the right agency partners to continue growing our business and agency reviews are a routine part of running a successful business today.” 

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Last October General Mills completed a media agency review, shifting the U.S. assignment to WPP’s Mindshare from Publicis Groupe’s Zenith. A short time later Mindshare also picked up a sizeable piece of the firm’s international media business as well. 

Joanne Davis Consulting assisted with the media review and it is believed that firm is also assisting General Mills with the current creative agency assessment. 

In addition to cereals such as Cheerios and Wheaties the company’s brands include Yoplait yogurt, Pillsbury, Annie’s and Cascadian Farm among many others.

 

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