• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, May 4, 2007

In a surprise move, confectionary giant Hershey has pulled media planning for some of its biggest brands out of Havas' MPG unit and consolidated it at its buying agency Omnicom's OMD. The move comes nearly two years after The Hershey Co. assigned advertising for its Hershey's, Reese's, Kisses, Take 5, York and Kit Kat brands to Havas' Arnold Worldwide unit, and MPG picked up planning as its sister media agency.

MPG declined to comment and a Hershey spokesman did not return calls, but executives familiar with the shift say the split is unusual, because it divorces media planning from the brand and advertising strategy team at Arnold, and because MPG received one of the strongest grades of any of Hershey's advertising services vendors when the confectioner conducted an internal review of its estimated $150 million advertising account early this year.

OMD, and its sister shop DDB, have a long history with Hershey, and has remained its agency of record for buying despite a shakeup of its agency roster in September 2005 that brought Arnold/MPG and North Castle partners into its fold. At that time, North Castle picked up advertising for a variety of Hershey brands, including Ice Breakers, Twizzlers, Jolly Rancher, and Hershey's Cookies and Snack Barz. It's unclear whether media planning for the North Castle brands was also consolidated at OMD. A spokesperson for the agency had no comment.

Ogilvy & Mather is Hershey's other long-standing agency.