Sony Corp. is mostly sticking with incumbent advertising agencies, including Universal/McCann for its Sony Pictures account, after conducting a massive ad agency review across all its businesses. Universal/McCann is a unit of media service giant Interpublic Group.
The advertising buying arms of ad agency groups like short, generic-sounding names like UM (for Universal/McCann), MPG and GroupM. Though their abbreviated names may seem un-corporate at first glance, they are giants in advertising placing complex advertising buys for clients across the business landscape.
The Sony Corp. review underway since May is for its ad agencies handling about $3 billion in global media buying, of which the U.S. accounted for about $600 million. The $64 billion-revenue Sony reviewed ad agency venders for its businesses such as movies, Sony Music, video games and other consumer electronics.
The Japanese conglomerate has been struggling because of financial woes in its large electronics businesses. Sony’s review is seen as designed to wring cost savings by negotiation lower fees with ad agencies and consolidating accounts.
Says an Advertising Age story, “Interpublic Group’s UM has worked with the company for over a decade and currently supports Sony Pictures, which accounts for a bulk of the company’s measured media spending in the U.S., as well as various parts of its entertainment and electronics business.” Measured spending covers sizeable advertising that can be tracked easily like network TV advertising, but not niche media like local newspaper ads in small newspapers and obscure online advertising.
Omnicom Media, another ad agency, handles Sony Pictures in Asia and parts of Europe, which appears to be continuing an existing relationship.
As the third edition of book “Marketing to Moviegoers” explains about such outside ad agencies, “The outside ad-agency media buyers have the clout to negotiate the lowest prices from electronic and print media, given the high volume of their ad spending from handling numerous clients.”
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