9115: Omnicom’s Frito Bandito-Like Maneuvers.

Advertising Age reported PepsiCo shifted Frito-Lay assignments among various Omnicom shops without a review. The client offered mumbo-jumbo excuses about globalizing their brands, when it’s really just another example of Corporate Cultural Collusion

Trying For More Global Approach, Frito-Lay Shifts Agencies on Three Brands

Lay’s, SunChips, Stacy’s Pita Chips Move Within Omnicom to TBWA, EnergyBBDO

By Maureen Morrison

PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay has moved marketing duties for its Lay’s and SunChips brands to EnergyBBDO, Chicago, as well as the Stacy’s pita chips brand to TBWA/Chiat/Day, from Omnicom Group sibling Juniper Park without a review.

A spokesman for Frito-Lay confirmed the moves, saying: “Frito-Lay and PepsiCo continue to globalize their brands and consumer marketing efforts,” and that the move “allows Frito-Lay to better leverage PepsiCo’s global relationship with Omnicom by tapping into the BBDO network.” Juniper Park is a subsidiary of BBDO.

BBDO and TBWA already work on several Pepsi beverage brands, as do other Omnicom agencies, such as Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Dieste for Hispanic marketing and OMD for media. BBDO handles Amp, Mountain Dew, Diet Mountain Dew; TBWA handles Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Pepsi Max and Gatorade.

PepsiCo in 2009 had unveiled its compostable bag for SunChips, with Juniper Park working on the campaign. But in October 2010 the company pulled the packaging after complaints that the bags were too noisy, although the bags were to remain in Canada. Juniper Park will continue to do work for PepsiCo’s global nutrition group and continues to work on the Quaker portfolio, an account it won from Goodby in 2009, though Quaker is in the midst of a hunt for a new chief marketing officer. Kirsten Lynch, Quaker’s CMO since late 2009, left the company earlier this year. Kathryn Matheson, a 15-year veteran of PepsiCo in Canada, is interim CMO.

For EnergyBBDO, this is the second account win reported in under a week, as the agency last Friday won significant chunks of the SC Johnson business, an account it is splitting with WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather, both of which beat out incumbent DraftFCB after a protracted review. EnergyBBDO will take on marketing duties for SCJ’s pest control and storage products, as well as digital marketing across all categories.

Shuffling work among Omnicom agencies is something Pepsi has been known to do. In October 2008, for example, the marketer handed Goodby its $120 million Quaker portfolio after pulling it from Element 79, an agency formed primarily to handle PepsiCo’s business.

Globally and in the U.S., Lay’s is the category leader by share, according to Euromonitor. In 2009, the brand had 28.4% share globally, followed by sibling chip brand Ruffles. In the U.S. in 2009, Lay’s had 31.2% market share, again followed by Ruffles.

Frito Lay in 2010 spent $24.2 million on U.S. measured media for SunChips, down from $27.6 in 2009; $14.5 million on Stacy’s pita chips in 2010, down from $16.8 million; and about $25.5 million on the Lay’s brand in 2010, up from $23.4 million in 2009.