Horizon Media Named Glanbia Performance Nutrition's AOR

Glanbia Performance Nutrition (GPN), the parent company behind well-known weight loss and supplement products including SlimFast, Optimum Nutrition and Think!, has named Horizon Media, the largest independent agency in the U.S., its media agency of record. The review kicked off in March under ID Comms' management and culminated when Horizon was awarded the business on Aug. 23. The account is worth upwards of $40 million, GPN's vp of integrated marketing Grant Leech told Adweek. As media AOR, Horizon will manage media execution across the buyer journey, as well as provide GPN with performance analytics. It will simultaneously act as a consultant for GPN's in-house integrated marketing and media team. With this move, GPN is consolidating its media under a single agency's management. Before now, GPN portfolio brands worked with different agency partners, leading to a number of review incumbents, which GPN declined to name. GPN incumbents included Stagwell agencies Assembly and MMI in Houston, according to a source with knowledge of the review who wished to remain anonymous. The two Stagwell agencies were finalists in the review alongside Havas, the source told Adweek. "As we're now moving towards a new growth initiative to consolidate all those powerhouse brands under a single sort of GPN focus, in a single portfolio, we needed to consolidate our partners as well," said Leech. The need to consolidate catalyzed the review. Agency tech stack search When the RFI went out to agencies this March, GPN had already consolidated its portfolio brands' sales teams, naming general managers for each of the brands. Leech had set up an in-house integrated marketing team to provide marketing support to the entire portfolio. "Where we've gone is from a bunch of small sort of independently-run businesses to a really scaled up and higher expectations, higher capability integrated marketing team that also required the same uptick in capabilities from our agencies," he said. The brand had a good idea of the kind of agency it was searching for—a shop with the "depth and breadth to be able to manage a portfolio of brands," was one thing, according to Leech. Although it does some linear TV buys and its channel mix is broad, Leech categorized GPN as a "digital-first company" that needed to work with a digital agency with strong data chops. After narrowing the search down to four agencies, each were given between six and seven weeks to respond to GPN's brief in writing. By July, the agencies presented to the company. Horizon Media displayed its strategic recommendations for the SlimFast brand, plus a search audit specific to GPN's Optimum Nutrition brand. "We needed somebody who understood and could provide us with real tech stack technology help in terms of being able to raise our abilities and raise our game from a performance perspective." Horizon's blu. platform delivered on that for Leech and was one of GPN's deciding factors. "Horizon impressed us immensely with the blu. platform, with the targeting and performance analytics capabilities that brings, which is critical for us because we have a very particular consumer that we go after," Leech said. The agency's CPG expertise was another big draw. Horizon's Hershey's client also boasts a large product portfolio, precipitating the need to craft individual marketing strategies for Hershey's chocolate bars and Reese's. Horizon strengthens its CPG expertise with its partnerships with the cash-back mobile rewards company Ibotta and its recent data partnership with shopper intelligence firm Catalina. "My background is in CPG and health and wellness. Glanbia being right at the intersection of the two was something I was really excited about jumping into, as well as the team that was working with me," said Voula Kakaletris, evp and managing partner at Horizon Media. Many portfolio brands, one agency GPN is one of many brands consolidating the agencies on their rosters in the hopes of tearing down silos that create disjointed consumer experiences and gaining a more streamlined way of working. According to Leech, one of the agency incumbents in particular was "potentially capable of taking on the whole portfolio," but Horizon stood out during the process as an agency equipped to dig into each of GPN's individual product brands, but also manage them as a portfolio. The review did not include GPN's search business specific to Amazon, which will remain with digital retail advertising shop Flywheel Digital. As the work changes hands, Horizon is prioritizing data ingestion and is consolidating data sources to home its audience segmentation approach within the blu. platform. "As much as the Horizon team has got to get the maximum value for each individual brand, we can't do it at the expense of another brand in our portfolio, and that's a delicate balance that I think they have the wherewithal and the capabilities to manage," said Leech. With Its blu. Data Platform, Horizon Media and Hershey’s Embark on the ‘Next Wave’ of Client Work

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Glanbia Performance Nutrition Names Horizon Media Its AOR

The account is worth between $40 and $50 million

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Olivia Morley