Vodafone has begun an international review of its media planning and buying agency requirements, The Media Leader can reveal.
The review comes three years after Vodafone appointed Dentsu agency Carat to handle its £400m global media account.
Multiple sources have confirmed that Vodafone intends to run a closed pitch that includes Carat as the incumbent and selected agencies from rival holding groups.
“There is no actual pitch brief,” one source said. “They’re already on a fantastic deal with Carat.”
The 2019 win had been seen as a coup for Carat, which had wrestled the account from WPP’s Wavemaker. Wavemaker had handled the business for five years, having won it as MEC (WPP created Wavemaker as a merger of agencies MEC and Maxus in 2017).
Carat was appointed to lead Vodafone’s media planning and buying in key markets like the UK, Germany, and Italy for offline buying. Vodafone had in-housed parts of its digital planning and buying and Carat was also mandated to advise on further in-sourcing digital marketing operations.
