Mumbai : Sam Balsara’s Madison World is set to lose Mondelez India media account to either Starcom Mediavest or Carat India, the agency it replaced 12 years ago when it won the then Cadbury India account. Mondelez International has invited only its global media agencies Publicis Groupe-owned Starcom Mediavest and Dentsu Aegis Network’s Carat to participate in a global media pitch.
Its other incumbent agencies — Madison World and PHD, which handles planning and buying in the UK, Ireland and Mission — were not invited. “We started a global review process that will cover media planning and buying for our five regions as well as our categories. We decided to open the review only to our core global agencies, Aegis Media and Starcom Mediavest,” a Mondelez International spokesperson said.
However, Balsara is still hopeful of his agency doing media work for the maker of Cadbury chocolates and Oreo biscuits.
Speaking on the development Sam Balsara said, “Our understanding is that Mondelez India is very happy with Madison’s performance and the dedicated team we have in place. We are currently examining and evaluating the various ways in which we can continue to deliver our service to Mondelez,”.
“The reason why Madison is not invited to the pitch is because this is a global pitch and will be conducted in four or five regions only. And only global agencies who can offer Mondelez capability across the globe have been invited. There is no pitch in India for India,” Balsara said.
A senior Mondelez executive, however, confirmed that the global pitch process includes India. That means the account will automatically move out of Madison. The chocolate maker wants to simplify its agency structure and bring uniformity across all its offices around the globe. “This next phase of our media buying transformation will further simplify our agency infrastructure, leverage our scale and build our capabilities, especially in the areas of ecommerce and content monetisation,” the Mondelez International spokesperson said.
“Having two core media buying agencies globally also offers us a significant opportunity to drive efficiencies that we can reinvest to fuel our growth.”
Industry insiders say the size of the Mondelez India media account is around Rs 500 crore and Madison World earns Rs 10-20 crore as commission from it. An industry insider said Balsara has initiated talks with both Starcom and Carat to get some backend work when either of these agencies get the Mondelez business.
Mallikarjun Das, India CEO at Starcom Mediavest Group and Ashish Bhasin, chairman and chief executive officer for South Asia at Dentsu Aegis Network, did not elicit any response on the development.
