Renault and Nissan unite on one of "biggest ever" global digital reviews

Renault’s chief digital officer Patrick Hoffstetter told The Drum the move marks the “one of the biggest ever” digital RFPs, although would not disclose the value of the accounts.

He said: “We are doing a lot of things from a technological point of view, a big part of which is that we are launching a joint RFP with Nissan this summer, to change all our ‘front end’ from a digital perspective, so anything around websites, mobile platforms, dealer websites.

"The whole point is to move towards being a global solution as global partners. It’s a massive project and the first time Nissan and Renault have done this."

The Drum also understands that the Renault and Nissan will co-pick the agencies for the roster.

The move follows the establishment of Renault’s global customer division launched last year, created to help the car marques unite their data sets to help tackle multichannel shopping.

It is working to break down internal silos and ensure that its teams and technologies are all working together and aligned, according to Hoffstetter.

"What has been key over the last 12 months is an intense cooperation within my teams, looking at site-centric data, our CRM team looking at customer-centric data, and OMD our media partner looking at media-centric data. We know that by looking at this triangle there are optimisations to be made," he said.

He added that creating its own DMP to house the data would be another option, a decision it is still waiting to make having already kicked off a pitching process with vendors.

"Whether we should we develop our own, or who should we pick – what will be the focus between our CRM optimisation or digital media buying optimisation – all of that is still on the table."

He claimed there was still a "lack of transparency" in the programmatic space when it comes to cost and the ownership of data, which isn't always clear when brands work with agency trading desks to run their programmatic inventory.

"This is the hot topic in the media space. Transparency on the cost and who owns the data."

However, he said the brand is yet to decide which approach will best suit its future needs.

Steve Antoniewicz, managing director of agency intermediary, the Recommended Agency Register, said: "By combining their digital outputs I'd imagine that Renault Nissan hope to, if you'll excuse the PR term 'recognise synergies'.

"Their collective digital output is massive as is their spending power and you have to think that 'value' must be the motivation.

"Given the Renault and Publicis long-standing arrangement and Nissan's recent move to Omnicom it seems logical that DigitasLBi will be a strong contender."

Renault is also on the lookout for global digital start-ups to collaborate on connected car apps.