Dive Brief:
- Coty announced Publicis Media as its lead global agency, with responsibilities to include several beauty brands acquired from P&G.
- Publicis Media’s Zenith will lead the effort and work closely with Coty’s in-house agency, Beamly, on digital, social and programmatic.
- "Zenith has been a trusted partner for Coty. We are excited to expand our partnership with them as we look to elevate the quality of our media while taking advantage of our new scale, as we strive to become over time a global industry leader by being a clear challenger in Beauty," said Camillo Pane, CEO Designate, Coty, in a release.
Dive Insight:
Given that part of the announcement made it clear that Coty’s in-house agency was going to remain a major player in its marketing in the key digital channel as well as in programmatic ad buys was telling. Brand/agency relationships are changing as marketing teams are growing in importance within companies. The days of brands simply handing agencies bags of cash are over. There’s much more emphasis on ROI and measurable KPIs around any campaign.
For programmatic ad buying, marketers have a better handle on the data around the ideal audience to target with automated buys than any agency would likely keep track of. And in a way, programmatic ad buying has taken some of the expertise agencies used to bring to the table away. Blab VP of Product Ryan Bowermaster previously told Marketing Dive, “Programmatic simply means that if you had to push a button 20 times a day to do your job, now you can push it once and have the output come to your desk automatically at set intervals 20 times a day. It doesn't mean that you don't have to read and interpret the output and make intelligent decisions, it just means that now you have more data, faster, cheaper to make those decisions from.”
Coty announced plans to acquire P&G's fragrance, color cosmetics and hair color business in 2015, with the deal expected to close in October. P&G has a reputation for spending heavily on its brands and with the Publicis deal, Coty is signaling that it is taking an aggressive marketing stance, with digital playing a key role.