TAG Brands Consolidates Media Upward of $150 Million With Dentsu X

Following a review spanning February to July, Dentsu X captured U.S. media agency duties for Aspen Dental, ClearChoice Dental Implants and Motto, which are part of dental health company TAG’s brand portfolio. The account is worth upward of $150 million, according to a source who declined to be named in this story. Independent Philadelphia-based agency Harmelin Media was the incumbent. Though it parted ways with TAG on good terms, Harmelin chose not to defend the business, according to TAG chief marketing and customer experience officer Ash Eldifrawi. The review, which MediaSense managed, was competitive. UM, OMD and Assembly competed with Dentsu X for the account, according to an anonymous source familiar with the review. The Speed of Culture Podcast: Changes and Challenges With Leah Meranus of Dentsu X “Dentsu was on a short list of a few different agencies that could actually meet our needs at that scale, at that level,” Eldifrawi told Adweek. The Dentsu Media agency began work by September and is now 75% onboarded and managing 100% of the brand’s search budget. Consolidating with an existing partner Selecting Dentsu X was an agency consolidation strategy for TAG, which previously worked with numerous media agency partners across its brand portfolio; Dentsu X was one. The agency nabbed the ClearChoice paid search and social business early in 2022, before it received an invitation to vie for the larger business. “They are huge, between their footprint, the revenue, the opportunity [and] the companies that are buying into the vision that they're evolving,” said Leah Meranus, chief media officer at Dentsu X and 360i. Now, with ClearChoice and Aspen Dental’s full media mix under its banner, Dentsu X manages full-funnel media planning and buying, supporting both brand and performance initiatives. The brand splits its media spend evenly between traditional investments like TV (national, local and DTV), and search and digital channels. Working with a single partner made sense for TAG, which wanted to tear down brand and performance marketing silos to improve targeting, measurement and analytics. Like most brands, TAG must find the right customer at the right time. Its unique challenge is that it has numerous target audiences that have seemingly disparate needs. For example, some of its customers seek dentures, some require urgent care and others have aesthetic goals. It must connect with those audiences across geographies, too, which means customizing its message hundreds of different ways, a complex task for pitching agencies to manage adeptly. Inside the review DentsuX spoke highly of the review process and the brand. Bob Fontana, the brand’s founder and CEO, held a briefing session with pitching agencies—an unusual move for a CEO, especially on a large account. “The CEO came to the agency briefing—I mean, let's just start there. They really took this as a considered process; they are that kind of company that really leans in. They are all engaged," said Meranus. The agency impressed the TAG team with its sophisticated approach to audience segmentation, bolstered by its M1 platform. “It's information they haven't really been able to find through their behavioral data,” Meranus said. “Being able to combine what you see in web activity with some of the other psychographics and data sets that we have in M1—combining that really created bigger pictures of their audience,” she added. Having worked on the ClearChoice business before receiving the RFP, Dentsu X understood the brand’s target audience and its business model. The understanding gave it an edge during the process, Meranus and Eldifrawi both admitted. ‘Skin in the game’ The CMO also felt a camaraderie with the Dentsu X team. He perceived employees as honest and straightforward, whereas competing agencies made sweeping promises that seemed unreasonable, like doubling its leads. By contrast, Denstu X presented reasonable KPIs that Eldifrawi considered spot-on given his knowledge of the business opportunity. “I thought they were honest, balanced [and] thoughtful in terms of how they sort of assess the size of the opportunity. It just came back as the most credible,” he said. Onboarding quickly required Dentsu X to build a team fast. “We put all hands on deck,” said Meranus. It hired new talent to meet TAG’s needs and even lured previous employees back to the agency in the process. “They've already had to make some adjustments and investments into this thing, because of the speed in which it's taken off,” Eldifrawi told Adweek, adding, “They've already had to put skin in the game early on.”