WPP and Omnicom have won the Amazon media pitch, said to be the world’s biggest.
The giant online retailer in 2022 spent $US20.6 billion in advertising and other promotional costs, up from $16.9 billion the year before, according to financial statements lodged by Amazon.
Omnicom Media Group will run the US and WPP Europe and APAC.
IPG Mediabrands, which won the account in 2013 and kept it in the 2017 pitch, still has Amazon Web Services, Amazon Ads and Amazon Business.
“After a comprehensive advertising agency review for our consumer business, we’ve chosen to partner with OMG and WPP," said Margaret Callahan, Amazon spokesperson.
"We appreciate the discussions with of all the world-class agencies we met during our search.
"We particularly want to thank IPG, who has been a fantastic partner over the last 10+ years, and we’re grateful for all their work and continued partnership for the other significant areas of our advertising business."
The geographic split between WPP and OMG plays to their regional strengths.
Insiders say the process of the pitch, which took more than six months, included a third-party review by global media advisors MediaSense.
"In the case of WPP, the Amazon win is certainly good news, but in many ways this past week’s losses of media accounts for Sky in Europe and Ebay in the US are equally, if not more, significant," said media analyst Brian Wieser at Madison and Wall.
"Significant account wins and losses can provide helpful insights around the broader momentum that agencies have, but don’t necessarily say anything at all.
"Organic growth, profit and capital efficiency trends in the long run are more impacted by clear strategies and solid operations, which can often only be assessed in retrospect."
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