IPG Mediabrands has recorded one of the biggest media business wins of the year, claiming global media planning and buying duties for Johnson & Johnson.
The win sees IPG Mediabrand’s J3, an agency created specifically for J&J, takes on the business, which is reportedly worth $2.6 billion globally. OMD was the incumbent agency for J&J in Asia Pacific.
Johnson & Johnson had intended to select different agencies to run its media in different regions when it called the pitch in May, but J3 “consistently demonstrated the ability to fully meet our consumer and customer needs as we drive superior growth and performance for our businesses and brands,” and so was handed the global business, the company said in a statement.
Among J&J’s top brands are Neutrogena, Aveeno, Xarelto, Zyrtec and Listerine.
The J&J media pitch is part of a spate of large reviews known collectively as mediapalooza. In July, Rowena Millward, a former J&J APAC VP of marketing, said the phenomenon was driven by procurement.
She told a forum in Sydney: “I see in the industry there is a lot of focus on cost and efficiency and I think a lot of the pitches happening at the moment have been driven by a fear of missing out.”
“A lot of clients are jumping on that bandwagon not necessarily because all of the relationships are broken – a lot of them aren’t broken – but cause there is a fear,” she said.
