Grey Global, WPP’s two week old acquisition, has lost one of its leading advertising accounts – food and confectionery maker Mars – however, this wasn’t enough to worry investors yesterday, as the share price in the world’s second largest marketing group rose from 2.5p to 514.5p.
According to today’s
Financial Times, although the announcement was a setback for WPP, it was not unexpected.
According to people familiar with the Grey bid, the possibility of Mars pulling its account from Grey was known by WPP before it put in a bid of £845 million (see WPP Wins Battle For Grey With £845 Million Bid).
Mars said yesterday it was consolidating all of its global advertising work with Omnicom, the world’s biggest marketing group, but would use Grey for ‘below the line’ activities such as interactive advertising, direct marketing and sales promotions, this includes deals such as the online marketing of M&M’s, which are potentially quite lucrative.
In an interview with the Financial Times earlier this year, Grey’s chief executive, Ed Meyer said he was aware that the group had to improve its creative reputation, saying it was “first class in every way else – not first (in creativity)”.
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