Client Resets Brand Spend; Open to Agency Consolidation

Sara Lee’s top global marketer said he would like the company to work with fewer shops, but that any consolidation is up to individual brand executives.

“In a broad sense, we’d like to be more important to fewer agencies,” said Lee Chaden, evp of global marketing and sales at the Chicago-based company. “My view is, as a general vision it would be desirable.”

Sara Lee works with six agencies in the U.S. The once- decentralized conglomerate in the last several years has made an effort to “[break] the history of being a collection of companies,” a client representative said.

Chaden last month laid out a plan to divide brand spending into four categories.