MAM
PepsiCo to up ad spend, trim agencies from 150 to 50
MUMBAI: Calling 2012 a transition year, PepsiCo announced that it will be adding to the advertising spends kitty. In a strategy to position itself for growth, the company also said it will reduce the agencies on its roster and lay off employese while adding to the A&P spends.
As reported in the Ad Age, the company will invest an additional $500 million to $600 million to advertise its brands this year following a six month review, with a focus on North America. Up to $100 million in additional spending will focus on things like in-store display racks.
In the coming years as well, PepsiCo will maintain or increase that rate of support to maintain ad spending as a particular percentage of revenue.
According to an analysis from Jefferies & Co. as a percentage of sales Coca-Cola spent 8 per cent on marketing in 2010 while PepsiCo spent just 3 per cent on its beverage brands.
PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi is looking to boost U.S. beverage sales and regain market share from Coca-Cola.
It is reported that the additional spending will focus on a dozen core brands like Pepsi, Gatorade, Tropicana, Mtn Dew, Sierra Mist, Lipton, Mirinda, Lay‘s, Sun Chips, Cheetos, Doritos and Quaker rather than spreading it across a wide swathe of its beverage and snack brands.
PepsiCo said it will reduce the number of agency partners in the beverages section from 150 to 50 in order to make way for the new investments. Currently TBWA /Chiat/Day manages the Pepsi trademark in the U.S. as well as Gatorade and Tostitos. BBDO works with Mountain Dew and remains involved with the Pepsi trademark globally. Goodby Silverstein & Partners handles Cheetos and Doritos while Energy BBDO is responsible for Lay‘s and Sun Chips.
The company recently added Brad Jakeman as president-global enjoyment and chief creative officer and Lorraine Hansen as senior VP-global hydration.
It has also been reported that the company is in plans to lay off 8,700 employees or about 3 per cent of PepsiCo ‘s global workforce across 30 countries. The company says it will reduce costs by an incremental $1.5 billion in the next three years with $500 million in savings each year.
MAM
Ember Cookware appoints Amit Singh as chief of supply chain
10-year veteran to lead operations as brand scales across D2C, quick commerce and retail.
MUMBAI: Ember just handed its supply chain the perfect seasoning because when your cookware is non-toxic and non-stick, the operations behind it better be fast and flawless. Ember Cookware has appointed Amit Singh as chief of supply chain and Services, bolstering its leadership team at a pivotal growth phase. Singh brings over a decade of experience in supply chain strategy, operations and large-scale network buildouts.
He began his career at Singapore-based retail giant Giant Hypermarket before joining Pharmeasy in 2015, where he played a foundational role in building and scaling its pan-India supply chain across B2B and B2C channels. At API Holdings, he later led supply chain operations for North India, managing end-to-end execution across complex, multi-city networks.
In his new role, Amit will oversee Ember’s complete supply chain and service ecosystem including sourcing, manufacturing coordination, logistics, last-mile delivery, post-purchase support and workforce development. His mandate focuses on building cost-efficient, resilient operations that shorten fulfilment times, strengthen inventory management and deliver a consistently high-quality consumer experience as the brand expands nationally.
Ember Cookware co-founder & CEO Siddharth Gadodia said, “Supply chain is where growth either holds or breaks. As we scale across channels and geographies, we need operations that are efficient, resilient, and built for speed, without ever compromising on the consumer experience. Amit has done this before, at real scale.”
Ember Cookware co-founder & CMO Himanshi Tandon added, “As we scale, supply chain efficiency becomes as important as product and brand. Amit’s mandate is to build the operational foundations that make our promise consistent at scale.”
Amit Singh commented, “Ember is building something genuinely different, a category-defining brand with a clear purpose and the ambition to match. I’m looking forward to building supply chain infrastructure that doesn’t just keep pace with growth, but enables it.”
The appointment forms part of Ember’s broader push to deepen leadership across key functions as it invests in its Innovation Lab, proprietary material technologies and operational backbone to support national expansion.
In a kitchenware world where non-stick promises are easy but delivery is hard, Ember isn’t just cooking up products, it’s cooking up an operation that keeps every promise sizzling from factory to fork.
