GroupM's Mindshare has won the media account of French pharmaceutical company Sanofi following a global review.
The company has also confirmed Publicis, Havas and WPP as its key creative agency partners.
The account, which currenrtly sits with Zenith, applies to 60 markets globally, including Australia. AdNews understands the business is unlikely to transfer across for several months.
Sanofi, which has a global media budget of around $1.9 billion, makes Telfast, Betadine, Buscopan and several other consumer healthcare brands, but is better known for its pharmaceutical drug range.
Over the counter products only account for about 14% of sales with the majority derived from prescription drugs.
It's best seller is the diabetes medicine Lantus, which had sales of $3.57 billion globally in the six months to June.
An AdNews analysis of pharmaceutical ad spend trends finds an increasing amount of money shifting into programmatic trading.
Comparable first quarter agency booking data between supplied to AdNews by the Standard Media Index (SMI) shows a 6.2% YOY increase in pharma media spend to $34 million this year, but the lift in programmatic increased by more than 100 times that rate.
TV advertising remains the largest area of spend by some distance; with pharma brands spending $24.3 million in Q1, followed by rapidly growing digital (up 32% to $5.58 million) and outdoor (up 233% to $2.7 million.)
Check out a full rundown of the category in Pharma marketing: here's where the drug money goes.
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