—The incumbent, Interpublic’s Initiative, won the business in 2013 and defended it successfully in 2017—
By Ben Bold
Amazon is reviewing its global media planning and buying business. The ecommerce group has worked with Interpublic Group’s Initiative for the past decade.
The news was broken by Marketing Brew. Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser provided Campaign with a statement that reads: “As part of our regular course of business, we routinely review existing business relationships with third-party vendors and partners, and based on those reviews, may decide to solicit proposals from vendors interested in working with us. We look forward to the proposal process in this case and will evaluate the right next steps for our businesses once we’ve reviewed submissions.”
In its 2022 full-year results, the retail, technology and entertainment giant reported it spent $20.6 billion on advertising and promotional costs in 2022, up from $16.9 billion in 2021, and more than double its 2020 spend of $10.9 billion.
Initiative successfully defended the global account in 2017, beating Publicis Media in a final round. It originally won Amazon’s global media in 2013 from then-incumbent GroupM’s Mindshare and Mediacom.
Earlier this year, Campaign reported that IPG’s Mediahub was set to win Netflix’s UK media planning and buying account. But ultimately, the agency had to turn down the business due to a client conflict, understood to be Amazon. Dentsu ended up being awarded the account.
Campaign contacted IPG for comment.
This story originally appeared on Campaign UK.
