PepsiCo appears to be centralizing a significant portion of its media and marketing procurement functions. In an internal memo obtained by Ad Age, Grace Puma, senior vice-president and chief procurement officer, detailed changes within PepsiCo’s advertising and marketing sourcing team, and highlighted the creation of a Center of Excellence (COE) for advertising and marketing.
“With this new operating model, the Advertising and Marketing COE will be well positioned to operate globally and create a more consistent and rigorous platform around key marketing spend categories in support of strategic business needs,” said Puma.
Already there is a COE for media and for creative agencies. Those were established to “leverage a global approach with two key categories in our international markets,” Puma said.
Richard Bellas will oversee all of those groups in his role as the leader of the COE for Global Marketing Services and will report to both Puma and Salman Amin, executive VP global marketing at PepsiCo.
Tom Cratty, COE international team lead for media, is being charged with driving the global sourcing and “expertise agenda” for media. Prateek Sood is taking on the role of director-COE international team lead for creative agencies. He will be charged with establishing a common global platform for PepsiCo’s creative agencies. Cratty and Sood will both report to Bellas.
Anthony Moon, senior director-advertising and marketing, will continue in his current role and will continue reporting to Bellas. Ms. Puma said in the memo that Mr. Moon will lead his team to “drive strategic advantage in PepsiCo’s critical North American market.”
“The creation of the COE for Global Marketing Services is the latest way in which the company is driving against its Power of One strategic imperative,” added a Pepsi spokeswoman. “Power of One” is a strategy that entails making the company’s myriad businesses more cohesive.
Last year, PepsiCo and Anheuser-Busch InBev – which together spend more than $1.15 billion on U.S. measured media – teamed up in an effort to wring savings out of media companies. That arrangement was an evolution of a “joint-purchasing agreement” the two marketers signed in 2009.
The pact was originally supposed to save the partners money on items such as travel, computers and office supplies. But the partners quickly moved onto network, cable, print and outdoor media buys, making overtures to companies such as Conde Nast, Time Warner’s Time Inc., NBC Universal and Time Warner’s Turner.
The effort has had mixed success. Though PepsiCo and A-B have had some positive feedback in the print world, they’ve met with stiff resistance from TV outlets. But the two continued to soldier ahead. In October, the companies said they planned to continue seeking media deals, even as most major media players rebuffed their efforts. A PepsiCo spokeswoman said there were no updates on the partnership.
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