Confectionery giant Nestle has instigated a spring clean of its North American advertising business, with a view to consolidating the sprawling sector to between four and six agencies. Reports in Adweek suggest that this root and branch review will encompass some of the Swiss food and drink makers biggest brands and follows on from a 2014 pruning exercise which saw its roster of 20 digital agencies culled to just eight. Citing an unnamed individual, the US trade publication details this review as procurement driven, adding that it will take the form of external auditing process rather than a number of creative pitches. Adding some meat to this speculation a notice sent by Nestle to selected agency partners was reproduced in which the confectionery giant set out its thought processes. It read: “The overall selection process is a collaboration between marketing, procurement, the communications and digital centers of excellence. Primary input was scorecarding sessions with each brand team, along with APRAIS and digital agency evaluations data and external third-party (like Forrester) agency capabilities intelligence. “We aggregated agency assessment data across brands, to have a full picture of agencies with multiple brand assignments. We summarized the discussions, scoreboards and findings and shared with brand teams for any further revisions. Ultimately, marketing’s overall assessment of capabilities and performance drove decisions.” Nestle recently offloaded its US candy brands to Italy's Ferrero in a deal valued at $2.8bn.
Confectionery company Nestle is cutting the number of ad agencies it uses in North America. Industry publication Forrester says the pruning will be through external auditing rather than new pitches. A note sent by Nestle to some of its agencies said the overall selection process was a collaboration between its marketing, procurement, communications and digital operations, and that decisions would be driven by the overall marketing assessment.