Coca-Cola’s North America media account moves from WPP to Publicis
By Ralph Tathagata
After a competitive pitch, The Coca-Cola Company’s North America media account has shifted from WPP to rival Publicis Groupe. In its new role, Publicis will oversee media and data in the U.S. and Canada.
It would be recalled that WPP has been Coca-Cola’s global network partner for four years, having won the pitch against Publicis in November 2021. Since then the agency has been in charge of over 200 Coca-Cola’s brands in five categories across 195 countries in nine territories. Over all WPP is handling Coca-Cola’s business worth $4 billion.
It would also be recalled that WPP recently posted a worse-than-expected revenue decline which caused its share price to hit a four-year low. The holding company said it expects adjusted sales, excluding pass-through costs, to be flat or shrink as much as 2% for 2025.
In hiring Publicis, Coca-Cola. has separated creative and media in the all-important U.S. market.
Coca-Cola spent an estimated $1.8 billion on U.S. advertising in 2023, up roughly 17% from 2022, according to Ad Age Datacenter. It ranked 28th on Ad Age’s Leading National Advertisers 2024. The company had measured U.S. media spending of $409 million through the first nine months of 2024 and $621 million in 2023, per MediaRadar.
Publicis handles media for Coca-Cola rival PepsiCo in China, India and Southeast Asia. It wasn’t immediately clear if there would be changes to those relationships. When WPP won Coca-Cola’s global business in 2021, the holding company then resigned its PepsiCo contracts.
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