NEW YORK MindShare today said it has exited Johnson & Johnson’s estimated $3 billion global media review.
A client representative said he could not confirm the shop’s status.
An agency rep said the WPP Group media shop notified J&J this week that it was abandoning its bid because “we are at capacity” in many of the offices within its global network. “If we were to win, we were fearful that we would not be able to staff up and take other steps necessary as quickly as we would need to [in order to] service the account properly.”
MindShare handles overseas planning duties for Pfizer Consumer Healthcare, which J&J acquired late last year.
Other incumbents still participating in the J&J review are Interpublic Group’s Universal McCann and Initiative and Omnicom Group’s OMD, per sources.
Last month, the client confirmed putting its global media in play and inviting its incumbents to defend.
The New Brunswick, N.J., company spends more than $2 billion annually in U.S. measured media and approximately $3 billion globally, per sources.
Sources at agency competitors wondered if MindShare’s work for consumer goods giant Unilever—which competes with J&J to some extent—emerged as an issue.
Other sources familiar with the the shop’s exit, however, strongly denied such suggestions, and said conflicts could have been handled to both clients’ satisfaction. (One source noted MindShare’s work for both American Express and HSBC in the financial services sector.)
MindShare executives also concluded that they would struggle to make a reasonable profit on the account given the resources they would need to devote to it, sources said.
But the agency rep insisted that the capacity issue was the main driver in the decision to exit.
When it confirmed the review last month, J&J said, “The recent acquisition of Pfizer Consumer Healthcare created an opportunity to re-evaluate our media agency relationships and enhance the ability of our brands to effectively communicate and leverage investment across the rapidly changing and increasingly diverse media landscape.”
When J&J acquired Pfizer’s consumer healthcare division, it stripped Aegis Group’s Carat of its planning and buying assignment for the account, splitting them between UM and OMD.
UM also currently handles J&J’s North American media chores, while OMD handles J&J products mainly in the rapidly expanding market of China.
J&J plans to make a decision in the global review by the end of June so that the winner has time to staff up for the client’s new planning season, which starts in January.
MindShare Exits J&J Pitch
