AstraZeneca picks Publicis and WPP as advertising partners
pharmafile | October 27, 2003 | News story | |Â Â Â
AstraZeneca will work exclusively with Publicis and WPP agencies in the US following a rationalisation of its advertising partnerships.
The review, conducted without recourse to new agency pitches, represents a fundamental shift in the relationship between the Anglo-Swedish company and its US advertising partners.
The decision is part of AstraZeneca's Agency Optimisation Project, which looked at ways that marketing work could be more fully integrated across all media.
The company also recently reorganised and strengthened its UK marketing team, and has not ruled out conducting a similar review of its advertising partners in Europe.
A spokeswoman for the company told Pharmafocus: "On a global level AstraZeneca is continually and proactively looking for the most effective ways of using our vendors. So that is one solution that we could implement, but there are no plans [to do so] at this time", she said.
The company says cost was only one of the factors influencing the decision, and says the new approach will allow it to increase the value it gets from its suppliers, by forging stronger relationships with ad agencies.
Tony Zook, Senior VP, Commercial Operations, said: "As part of an in-depth review of a number of critical corporate activities, we saw an opportunity to consolidate our agency business in a way that will create closer management relationships and develop strong shared-risk-based partnerships".
Rather than assigning specific product accounts to either WPP or Publicis, AstraZeneca will commission work in certain areas for their products and have one group build the best team for that purpose from all of their resources.
In addition to Publicis and WPP, AstraZeneca will also retain Grey and Interpublic who will be responsible for the launch to US healthcare professionals of its long-awaited cholesterol drug Crestor (Grey) and lung-cancer treatment Iressa (Interpublic).
