Estée Lauder's €30m EMEA media business to move from OMD to Dentsu Aegis
Denstu Aegis has won the contested EMEA media business for the Estée Lauder Company, estimated to be worth in the region of €30m (£26m), following a competitive pitch, The Drum understands.
Estee Lauder
The account was previously handled by Omnicom's OMD, which won the business in 2016 from now-defunct sister agency M2M, with the review – managed by ID Comms – kicking off in February this year.
Manning Gottlieb OMD continues to manage the UK media account, which was not included in the review.
Neither OMD or Estée Lauder had returned The Drum’s request for comment at the time of writing. Dentsu Aegis declined to comment upon approach.
The appointment of Dentsu comes amid an ongoing global review of the $400m global media account by Estée Lauder Company, which counts Clinique, Jo Malone and DKNY among its brands.
In particular, the company is looking to up its ad spend on digital channels with leaders at the beauty giant pledging to boost their advertising and promotion budgets in the second half of the year.
On an earnings call earlier this year, bosses said that “to stay at the forefront” it would bring more digital talent in-house and “direct more advertising spending to search influencers and mobile-first videos.”
“We are increasing social media activities on our big brands and on our mid-sized brands and on some of our new acquisitions," reads a transcript of its earnings call.
“Our intention is to make sure that also the brands that historically has been driven more by in-store activation and innovation that get driven by investment in the social media arena. And in order to do that well, we don't need only more money on the advertising line. The real big difference in going from a brick-and-mortar brand to a social media-driven brand is creative assets and the amount of talent in communication.”
For Dentsu Aegis, the win builds on a strong start to the first half of the year. In December, it won Jaguar Land Rover's global media business from Mindshare while it also retained the global Microsoft account and won the global AB InBev brief.
However, in the UK it lost the government's £140m media business to OMD coupled with the exit of two of its top people in the division departing in swift succession. Meanwhile, Dentsu Aegis North's chief executive officer Elliot Muscant left in April and Mark Creighton stood down as chief operating officer for the UK & Ireland just last week (1 June).