• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, August 16, 2022

Publicis Groupe is the big winner in the just completed Mondelez global media review.

The CPG giant spent $1.6 billion on advertising in 2021, according to the firm’s latest annual report.

Publicis picked up the client’s Europe Middle East and Africa region. Estimated spending in that region by the client is more than $500 million, per COMvergence.

Dentsu’s Carat and WPP’s Wavemaker were incumbents on EMEA business.

Publicis Groupe also retained assignments in North America, China, and Latin America. It will now handle an estimated 70% of the client’s media business globally. It also handles creative and production assignments for the company that were not part of this latest review. 

Incumbents Wavemaker, part of WPP, and Vaynermedia also came away with assignments. Vaynermedia will continue to handle communications planning and digital buying in North America.

Wavemaker retained Australia, New Zealand, India and Japan and additionally won Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The agency  handles expenditures of more than $225 million of Mondelez business across these markets.

A Wavemaker spokesperson stated, “Wavemaker has been a strategic partner to Mondelez since 2019. We’re excited to continue this relationship across most of APAC... and disappointed not to be continuing our relationship across Germany and France. The extensive pitch process over the last six months involved a great deal of work, and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the contributors from across our formidable global network who did an outstanding job.”

The Mondelez win is the latest in a string of big wins for Publicis Groupe in recent months, including the addition of about $600 million in new PepsiCo business in India and Asia. In the spring, it won the lion’s share of the consolidated A-B InBev global media business.

Earlier this year It won Norwegian Cruise Lines (via Digitas) and big pieces of KFC and McDonald’s.

Mondelez confirmed the assignments in a statement that read in part: "To lead the future of snacking, we are continuing to evolve our marketing approach to be more consumer-centric and digitally-enabled than ever before. Since our last media review in 2018, we have re-engineered our agency model across creative and production to deliver meaningful impact to the MDLZ business."

The firm said the appointments are effective Sept. 1 and that most of the transitions will be completed by the end of the year. 

Mondelez markets over 140 brands worldwide including Oreo, Ritz, Milka, Tates, Toblerone and many others.