Advertising Age reported Dentsu retained Heineken global media duties after a review, while creative duties were consolidated across Publicis Groupe, WPP, and Stagwell.
The Heineken Chief Commercial Officer stated, “Moving to fewer, better and bigger agency partners is part of our broader commercial transformation.”
Um, partnering with four of the six biggest holding companies underscores the exclusivity in Adland.
Independent White advertising agencies are shut out from serving global accounts.
Multicultural agencies likely receive even fewer crumbs—if anything at all.
Anyone not in a holding company is resigned to cry in their locally-brewed beer.
Heineken sticks with Dentsu for global media, shakes up creative roster
By Ewan Larkin
Dentsu has retained Heineken’s global media business following a competitive pitch process, with the brewer also consolidating its creative roster across Publicis Groupe, WPP and Stagwell.
Publicis retained global secondary production duties and, along with WPP and Stagwell, will handle creative for Heineken’s Amstel, Birra Moretti, Desperados and Tiger brands, as well as select local priority brands.
Creative for the flagship Heineken brand was not part of the review and remains with Publicis.
COMvergence estimates Heineken’s global media spend is $550 million.
Mediasense handled the agency review.
Dentsu’s reappointment is a much-needed vote of confidence for the Japanese holding company, which reported its worst annual loss last year and lost marquee media accounts including Microsoft. Dentsu has worked with Heineken since 2016, with the relationship expanding through a global media consolidation in 2021 and a two-year extension announced in March 2025.
The consolidation is part of Heineken’s EverGreen 2030 growth strategy and a broader commercial transformation initiative the brewer calls “Freddyai.” The goal, per the company, is fewer and deeper agency relationships built for speed, efficiency, and creative consistency across global markets.
“Moving to fewer, better and bigger agency partners is part of our broader commercial transformation,” Bram Westenbrink, chief commercial officer, said in a statement.
1 comment:
White holding companies were never going to let multicultural shops touch beer ads. I've been in the trenches in this for years, and my conclusion is that a lot of the younger generation's document disinterest in alcohol now, is because the messaging has all become bland as hell.
When you have mayonnaise liquor executives bypassing cultural experts, and hiring mayo friends who hire mayo ad agencies who hire mayo vendors, the audience gets sold gallons of mayo.
Go look at names and credits for even the "ethnic import beers" like Pacifico or Modelo etc. and you'll see how they go from spicy and interesting when they were first launched (usually at multicultural shops), to mayo, mayo, wall of mayo at holding company mayo agencies over time.
It's a well known phenomenon where if a multicultural ad agency launches some ethnic brand (hot sauce or Peruvian beer or spicy seasonings or whatever), they help build it up as a cool underground thing, and then a mayo holding company will come along, yanks the account and redirect it to a mayo partner. All the subsequent advertising becomes mainstream mayo mush, and young consumers lose interest in it.
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