“After a comprehensive advertising agency review for our consumer business, we’ve chosen to partner with OMG and WPP,” Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan said in a statement.
The accounts will be split by geography, with OMG handling the work in the Americas and WPP handling EMEA and APAC. Amazon calls the decision a strategic move to benefit from the best of what both agencies have to offer.
“This decision was made after a careful and extensive review process,” Callahan told ADWEEK. “We investigated each agency’s marketplace expertise, media planning experience at all levels, media pricing, measurement abilities, and account management in all geographic regions.”
According to Amazon, the account review process took more than six months from end to end, including an objective third-party review by MediaSense to validate its findings. The company previously said it was conducting a review as a “regular course of business.”
IPG Mediabrands previously won Amazon’s account in 2013, and it successfully defended it in 2017. Last December, IPG Mediabrands became the first media holding company to partner with Amazon Ads to support its newly launched Prime Video ad tier.
According to Amazon, the decision to move on to new agencies was not a reflection of past work but about choosing what’s best for the company moving forward.
“We appreciate the discussions with of all the world-class agencies we met during our search,” Callahan said. “We particularly want to thank IPG, who has been a fantastic partner over the last 10+ years, and we’re grateful for all their work and continued partnership for the other significant areas of our advertising business, including AWS, Amazon Ads, and Amazon Business.”
IPG will remain Amazon’s global media partner for Amazon Web Services, Amazon Business, and Amazon Ads.
