Q2/2015
View R3 is a leader in global, regional and local consulting on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of marketers and their agencies. We work with nine of the world’s top twenty marketers including Coca-Cola, Unilever, AB InBev, MasterCard, Mercedes Benz, Johnson & Johnson, Samsung and Kimberly Clark.
Welcome to the R3 Q2 2015 Update, our regular quarterly report on the marketing communications industry. In this issue, we look at the big stories in the industry, the initial quarterly earnings of the holding companies, along with recent pitches, M&A’s and New Business Results.
The Biggest Stories By far the biggest story in marketing this quarter was the so called “Media-palooza” – the 21 global advertisers who have called reviews for their global and US media agencies. You can see the full list by category here and read more of R3’s analysis of the issue here. There’s little doubt that the combination of the need to invest more in digital media, coupled with the challenges for transparency over both programmatic buying and media rebates is fueling a large number of these reviews. R3 has been retained for some of these pitches, and the biggest challenge we see is actually the existing clients who are not pitching their media. The natural stress on media agencies in terms of top talent for these reviews is compounded by the fact that there are only so many media owner commitments and opportunities to go around. This is going to make it increasingly difficult for the agencies to maintain service standards and media rates on current clients. While a number of the holding group leaders have made it clear that the total revenue on some of these clients in review is less than 5% of their total business – the fact remains that these are the prestigious leading FMCG, Financial and Auto marketers that are still the cornerstones of any successful global media operation.
NEW YORK 4th floor 57 W 57th Street, New York, NY T +1 646 416 8088 Taleah Mona Lusky – Senior Consultant taleah@rthree.com Mike Goodnough – Senior Consultant mike@rthree.com Talia Tay – Consultant talia@rthree.com SHANGHAI Room 4203, United Plaza, 1468 NanJing Road West T +86 21 6212 2310 Greg Paull - Principal greg@rthree.com Erin Singleton - Consultant erin@rthree.com Trace Qu - Researcher trace@rthree.com BEIJING A 1801, Chaowai SOHO, No.6 B Chaowai Street, Chaoyang District, Beijing T +86 10 5900 4733 Sabrina Lee - Managing Director sabrina@rthree.com Lisa He - Consultant lisa@rthree.com SINGAPORE 69A Tras Street, Singapore 079008 T +65 6221 1245 ShuFen Goh - Principal shufen@rthree.com Seema Punwani - Principal Consultant seema@rthree.com Herbert Ho - Regional Business Director herbert@rthree.com
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