Lottery operator hires Asahi’s Sergeant during agency review

Ross Sergeant, the global head of media at brewer Asahi, has left to join National Lottery operator Allwyn in the same role within weeks of the company launching a review of its media agency account.

Sergeant will join Allwyn as global head of media on 3 April. He will be responsible for driving integrated media strategy and planning excellence from a group and market level, inspiring responsible use of data, and ensuring the company has “world-class media and digital teams” supported by media agencies.

Allwyn, a gaming operator in multiple countries, won the UK National Lottery contract in March 2022 and will officially take over operations in February 2024.

It has since launched a review of its media planning and buying requirements, with Dentsu agency iProspect, the incumbent agency for Camelot, repitching for the business. One of the competing agencies is WPP’s EssenceMediacom.

Sergeant joined Asahi in 2020 from WPP agency Wavemaker, where he was a strategy partner for two years, and has previous agency experience in his native South Africa at Omnicom (OMD) and WPP (MediaCom, now EssenceMediacom).

However since working advertiser-side he has become a stern critic of conventional wisdom around media-buying, such as, in his view, too many marketers misinterpret Binet & Field conclusions about how much to spend on brand-building versus performance or response media.

He told this publication’s Future of Brands event last year that there are many limitations to the 60/40 rule and marketers should engage with the entire piece of work before presenting it as fact.