Top 5 Media Agencies That Belong On Your Prospecting List

If you’re a media seller, tracking agency shifts is crucial to winning new business. But, with agency rosters changing so often, following all of these shifts on your own can be difficult and time consuming.

That’s where we can help.

In 2017, our predictive sales publication WinmoEdge tracked 1,075 agency shifts, and published 618 articles detailing agency accounts on the move. In Q1 of this year, we’ve already tracked 341 shifts and published 202 accounts on the move articles.

In other words, we can do the heavy lifting for you. To show you what we mean, we have put together a list of five brands that recently changed up their media rosters. Get started by engaging these brands and their new media agencies to be top of mind when the new shop begins allocating ad dollars.

1.) BMW-owned Mini USA named Crossmedia as its media AOR for its Western Region. The new shop will handle all media planning, buying and strategy across the region, and they will work closely with Mini’s creative agency, Pereira & O’Dell. It’s unclear if a new shop has been tapped to handle Mini’s Eastern Region, or if Universal McCann is still running that account. So, west coasters should be engaging brand and new agency decision makers right away. As for the east coasters, don’t forget that agency changes often have a domino effect, so don’t rule out engaging decision makers on your end as well.
National TV Spend YTD (per iSpot): $7.7 million
Digital Spend YTD (per Pathmatics): $855,200

2.) Delta has consolidated all of its media work at Omnicom’s PHD, after tapping the shop to handle US media in 2016. This change bumps incumbent Digitas off the media roster, where it will now work only with the airline on customer relationship management.
National TV Spend YTD (per iSpot): $6.4 million
Digital Spend YTD (per Pathmatics): $353,600

3.) LVMH, the French luxury goods company, has put all of its US media under review across all brands. There is no word of which agencies are participating, but it certainly puts incumbent Havas Media in jeopardy for losing some big business. Keep in mind that not only does a new media agency indicate a potential for increased media spend, but (as I referenced above) media reviews are often followed by creative. So creative shops with luxury goods client experience may want to start engaging decision makers to be top of mind should creative come next.
National TV Spend YTD (per iSpot): N/A for all brands, but Hennessy alone has spent $13.4 million
Digital Spend YTD (per Pathmatics): $286,600 (for wine and spirits brands only, total spend for all brands wasn’t available)

4.) Altice, came out of left field, with not one, but two new agency hires. Following no formal review, the cable conglomerate recently announced the appointment of WPP‘s Wavemaker and Y&R as its new US media and creative AORs. While the company had no creative agency previously, media had been handled by incumbent Horizon Media. So, with a brand new agency roster, expect a campaign to follow. Begin reaching out to both brand and agency contacts to secure ad dollars tied to potential upcoming work.
National TV Spend YTD (per iSpot): N/A
Digital Spend YTD (per Pathmatics): $125,100

5.) Liberty Mutual recently tapped Initiative to handle all US media. The new shop takes over for incumbent Blue 449. Keep in mind that this hire comes not long after Liberty named Goodby as its creative AOR. So, with a relatively new roster, this is another case where you can expect ad spend to pick up (likely in Q4 and through Q1), and a new campaign to potentially debut soon.
National TV Spend YTD (per iSpot): $109.4 million
Digital Spend YTD (per Pathmatics): $11.9 million

If you found this valuable, be on the lookout for our next post on recent creative agency shifts. If you can’t wait, I’d suggest starting your free trial of Winmo today, and take a look at all of the insight WinmoEdge can offer. You won’t be disappointed.