General Motors chooses Aegis’s Carat for $3bn advertising plan
GENERAL Motors said yesterday it had picked Carat, part of British advertising group Aegis, to handle its global media planning and buying, in a blow to incumbent Publicis.
The GM account, which spends $3bn a year on advertising according to analysts, puts Carat at the helm of all GM duties for consumer-facing media, which includes broadcast, digital and social media.
“Aegis was only handling European duties until now. Publicis is the main loser, as it managed $2bn before,” Exane BNP analysts said in a note, estimating the contract loss would cut one per cent from Publicis’s 2012 earnings per share.
Publicis played down the loss of the contract, which was held by its unit Starcom, saying it represented less than 0.5 per cent of Publicis Groupe revenue.