Bayer HealthCare announced that it’s consolidated all of its global marketing agencies and media buying/planning activities. As a result, Omnicom and WPP will handle primary creative duties for its four business units while WPP’s GroupM will be responsible for the media portion in markets outside the U.S. (which represent 80% of BHC’s global media spend; Initiative handles U.S. media).
The global consolidation, which went into review last July, will cover German-based BHC units Bayer Schering Pharma/Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals and Animal Health along with US-based BHC Consumer Care and Medical Care.
The consolidation goes into effect immediately, will take 18-24 months to complete and will affect approximately 50 BHC brands including all its major global, regional and launch brands according to the announce. In a statement, Bayer HealthCare CEO Arthur Higgins says, “Our initiative on global marketing and media services was undertaken to help us achieve increased consistency across marketing disciplines, markets and targets and enable us to deliver more effective and creative work in more markets, more quickly. Additionally, we believe this change will enable us to drive significant improvements in performance and efficiency on our leading brands.”
Ogilvy and JWT will now share creative account duties on WPP’s end while BBDO and CDM Group will serve as co-lead agencies for Omnicom.
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