L’Oreal expands Wavemaker's global media remit

Wavemaker has won L'Oreal pitches in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand, adding more than $500 million in billings.

In the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), which is one of L'Oreal's largest markets, Wavemaker won the $400 million media account from Publicis.

Wavemaker won the $70 million Australia and New Zealand media account from Carat.

The agency also recently retained the $61 million business in India and the $15 million account in Central & Eastern Europe. The appointments expand Wavemaker’s L’Oréal remit to 25 markets and are part of a global media review. In 2020, the cosmetics giant spent €8.65 billion on advertising globally.

In the UK, WPP stablemate Essence handles L'Oreal's media buying and planning after it picked up the £106 million account from Wavemaker in 2019.

“Our ability to attract and retain L’Oréal, the world’s third largest advertiser, makes me incredibly proud and optimistic,” Wavemaker global chief executive Toby Jenner said.

“We seem to be hitting their sweet spot of local expertise and global consistency, and that’s a testimony to the successful reorientation of Wavemaker.” 

In the past year, Wavemaker has expanded its relationship with Beiersdorf, Netflix, Pernod Ricard, Perfetti van Melle and ViacomCBS.

Parent company WPP created Wavemaker through the merger of MEC and Maxus at the start of 2018, after both agencies suffered big account losses, and Jenner moved from sister shop MediaCom to become CEO in summer 2019 with a strategy of winning more global clients.

“Wavemaker has had a really strong year in new business,” Mark Read, the WPP chief executive, told Campaign at its Q2 results last week when Group M, the media-buying division, was the “stand-out performer” with 28% growth as the ad market bounced back from the pandemic.