MUMBAI In a major blow to WPP, HSBC Bank has handed over its global media business to Omnicom’s PHD. The agency won the business following a review which began in January along with Mindshare and Dentsu.
In a press statement, HSBC said, “We have selected PHD as our preferred media planning and buying supplier as they demonstrated strong strategic skills and advanced digital transformation capabilities. In a complex media and communications marketplace, PHD's overall approach stood out as being forward thinking, yet straightforward and pragmatic.”
Earlier this year, HSBC appointed Publicis-owned Saatchi & Saatchi to replace WPP’s JWT to lead its global advertising business.
With this, WPP has lost another major client from its kitty as the HSBC account has billing of around $400 million and was worth over $20 million in annual revenue to WPP. The HSBC account was at WPP's Mindshare, whose American Express business is also up for review. WPP is trying to hold its relationship with Ford Motor, also in review.
Mindshare held HSBC’s business for over 13 years. Another account loss comes as a blow to Mindshare, where the network is still reeling from the sudden exit of WPP’s chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell while struggling to retain or win some of the estimated $10 billion worth of media business that went under review at the beginning of the year.
Global media giant, WPP has recently lost several pitches including Campbell, Marriott, Amgen, AT&T, Volkswagen among others.
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