This Future of Marketing Briefing covers the latest in marketing for Digiday+ members and is distributed over email every Friday at 10 a.m. ET. More from the series →Yes, more thoughts on what it means, or doesn’t, that Publicis walked away from competing for Coca-Cola’s media dollars to grab PepsiCo’s instead. But in my defense, it felt right to wait until the hot takes, livestreams and articles on the fallout died down a bit. If you’ve got the stomach for more, read on for where the industry stands on this.
It’s been known for a while that Publicis was operating on a different level to its rivals but the decision is arguably the clearest articulation of that so far. If PepsiCo were a mid-tier account, skipping the pitch would just be a client taking a shortcut. In reality, however, it’s one of the largest — worth around $1.7 billion. At this size, on a rival scale to Coca-Cola, no pitch means the market’s two biggest advertisers both gave serious thought to handing Publicis this kind of money. One did, on trust alone.
“I’ve been on billion dollar pitches and they’re one of the most painful experiences on earth for agency execs,” said Patrick Ryan, a former Omnicom exec, who now runs 300, a specialist growth consultancy for agencies. “The ability to be able to do what Publicis did without a pitch is impressive because the cost savings (both money and people) there are absolutely vast.”
