- Steve McClellan

Beiersdorf, the marketer of Nivea and Eucerin skin products, is conducting a "pricing exercise" with its U.S. incumbent OMD, according to sources.

The client spent $100 million on domestic measured media in 2008, according to Nielsen. Through August of this year, spending totaled $80 million, per Nielsen.

The Hamburg, Germany-based client recently conducted reviews of its media agency assignments in several European countries including its home market. Sources said the Germany review also started as a pricing exercise that blossomed into a full-blown pitch with outside contenders. In September, Beiersdorf awarded Aegis Group's Carat media chores in Germany, where OMD had been the incumbent for more than two decades. The switch takes effect on Jan. 1, 2010, per the client.

In a statement confirming the change in Germany, the client said it was Carat's "coherent and strategically innovative approach that ensured its success" with its pitch. The switch, the client added, "is part of an offensive launched by Beiersdorf which is aimed at expanding the company's business activities and tailoring them towards the specific global challenges posed by the market."

In 2008, Carat successfully defended several Beiersdorf brands that it handles in China.

The U.S. pricing exercise comes five months after the Nivea Good-bye Cellulite product line won a media Lion at Cannes for a sponsorship campaign coordinated by OMD.

OMD declined comment, referring calls to the client. A client representative said that currently there are no plans for a full review in the U.S.

Beiersdorf, founded in 1882, employs nearly 22,000 people worldwide and reported sales of just under $9 billion in 2008.