The world’s most valuable beverage brand has split its media future in two, and the outcomes could not be more different for the agencies involved.

Coca-Cola has confirmed it is keeping its global media, data, and technology business with WPP, the agency group it appointed nearly five years ago to manage its marketing functions for around 200 brands under a dedicated unit called Open X. However, WPP will not compete for Coca-Cola’s North American media account, which covers the United States and Canada.

That $700 to $800 million North America account is now up for grabs, and the contest is between two agencies with very different motivations for winning it.

Omnicom and Dentsu are understood to be vying for the North America account. Dentsu already works with Coca-Cola in Japan and Korea, which are excluded from the North America and international reviews. Furthermore, Omnicom arrives at the Coca-Cola pitch carrying the momentum and the wounds of the same week; having just lost PepsiCo’s global media business to Publicis after more than two decades, it is now competing for one of the most prominent accounts in American advertising to offset that loss.

The context that makes this story extraordinary is the chain of events that created the vacancy in the first place. Coca-Cola’s North America media account shifted from WPP to Publicis Groupe in March 2025. Then, on September 2, 2026, Publicis won PepsiCo’s global media account without a pitch, and within hours withdrew from the Coca-Cola global media review it was competing in against WPP. The conflict of interest was immediate and irreconcilable. Consequently, Publicis vacated the North America account, triggering the review now underway.

Mediasense is handling the review, with two of three rounds of pitches for the international account having already taken place before Publicis withdrew. WPP and Publicis had gone head-to-head in London and Shanghai before the third showdown in Mexico City, which Publicis did not attend.

Coca-Cola has described its strategic direction in terms that signal what it is really looking for from its agency partners. “The Coca-Cola Company is evolving its digital-first marketing operating system for future growth. This includes a shift in mindset from traditional media planning to the emerging ways we need to reach consumers through technology, including agentic tools,” the company said.

That framing is the clearest signal yet of what determined the outcome of Coca-Cola’s global review, and what will determine the North America winner. The account is not going to the agency with the longest relationship or the most creative awards. It is going to the agency that can most credibly demonstrate AI-powered planning, data infrastructure, and technology integration at scale.

For Omnicom, which lost PepsiCo precisely because Publicis was judged to have superior technology capability, the Coca-Cola North America pitch is more than a commercial opportunity. It is a chance to prove that the lessons of the PepsiCo loss have been absorbed, and that the world’s most capable AI-driven media platform is not just Publicis.

The review is underway. The outcome will define the next chapter of global media agency competition.

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