McCann Human Care Earns AOR Assignment For Merck

McCann HumanCare, part of Interpublic Group’s McCann-Erickson, has been awarded its first agency of record assignments from pharmaceutical giant Merck, after a review, the agency confirmed.

The brands include the client’s respiratory line of products--Nasonex, Singular and Dulera. According to Kantar Media, spending on ads for the three brands exceeded $125 million in 2010. For the first nine months of 2011, spending surpassed $121 million.

Omnicom’s DDB had previously handled creative duties on Dulera, while sister agency BBDO handled Nasonex. However, Omnicom continues to handle a large slice of the client’s account. The holding company has a dedicated Merck unit called Unified that in recent months has been awarded all of Merck's business in the cardiovascular, oncology, contraception, fertility, immunology and bone therapeutic categories.

DDB handles consumer advertising in each of those areas, an Omnicom rep confirmed.

It was not clear which agency had previously handled Singulair.

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Merck has been shuffling its agency deck of late. Over the past year, the company has been reorganizing its ad assignments, awarding entire therapeutic categories to separate holding companies. In addition, last November it hired Publicis Groupe’s namesake agency to handle global advertising duties for several over-the-counter products, including Miralax and Dr. Scholl’s.

In 2010, the client awarded media planning and buying duties on its nearly $600 million advertising account to a team of IPG agencies, led by Initiative and Draftfcb. That assignment followed a consolidation review after Merck completed its merger with Schering-Plough.

The new assignments won by McCann HumanCare will be led by Andrew Schirmer, executive vice president, managing director of the agency. The scope of work includes all patient and consumer communications efforts, including direct-to-consumer advertising, patient education, digital and customer relationship management.

“Merck is an extremely important new client for our group," Schirmer stated in reference to the win, adding that the agency was "proud and excited to be named as one of their key marketing solutions partners." 

While the awards are the first for the McCann’s HumanCare unit, the agency, through other divisions, handles Merck assignments in Japan and Germany.

While Merck allowed McCann to confirm the award, a client rep did not immediately return a query seeking further comment.

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