AD Agencies
Publicis steals Coca-Cola’s $800 North American media crown from WPP
MUMBAI: Publicis Groupe has pinched Coca-Cola’s lucrative North American media account from WPP following a hush-hush competitive review, industry sources confirmed yesterday.
The French advertising giant will now handle Coca-Cola’s media planning and buying across the United States and Canada, with the business estimated to be worth a fizzy $800 million in annual billings.
The soft drinks behemoth conducted the review under tight wraps, with only WPP and Publicis invited to participate in what insiders describe as a “closed door beauty contest” between the two holding companies.
For Publicis, the win represents sweet revenge after finishing as runner-up in 2021 when WPP scooped Coca-Cola’s global integrated business. Now, just three and a half years later, the tables have turned in North America.
The account covers media planning and buying for Coca-Cola’s extensive portfolio of over 200 brands, including its flagship cola, Sprite, Fanta, and various sports drinks, juices, and plant-based beverages.
Despite the sting of losing North America, WPP will continue to serve as Coca-Cola’s primary global partner, handling media duties across the rest of the world and maintaining responsibility for creative work globally through its bespoke Open X agency setup.
Coca-Cola spent an estimated $1.8 billion on US advertising in 2023, according to Ad Age Datacenter, with $621 million specifically on measured media. Globally, the beverage giant splashed out $5.15 billion on advertising in 2024, up from $5 billion the previous year.
In a statement crafted to soothe WPP’s bruised ego, Coca-Cola emphasised that “WPP is the only global marketing partner of The Coca-Cola Co,” describing Publicis merely as a “complementary partner for its US and Canada media business.”
“The Coca-Cola Co is committed to the ongoing transformation of its marketing model to ensure the company is best positioned to connect with the evolving consumer marketplace around the world,” the statement continued, adding that “no other changes are expected, and Coca-Cola is in an advanced stage in the process of renewing its global partnership with WPP.”
Coca-Cola globall chief market ing officer Manolo Arroyoa,praised WPP’s contribution, highlighting achievements including “Coke being named Creative Brand of the Year at the Cannes Lions in 2024.”
The Coca-Cola win continues Publicis’ remarkable run of form in the media pitch circuit, coming hot on the heels of major account victories with Pfizer and Hershey’s. This stellar performance prompted the holding company to upgrade its earnings guidance twice during 2024.
Last year, Publicis overtook WPP as the world’s largest agency group by revenue, marking a dramatic shift in the industry’s power balance. The addition of Coca-Cola’s North American media business will only cement that position.
The handover is expected to take place in the coming months.
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
