The US$18 million Thai beverages business is handled by MindShare, while OMD has the $5 million Frito-Lay foods business. The pitch will also involve Australian media planning specialists Bellamy Hayden, which works with PepsiCo in Australia and plans to open a Bangkok office.
"Media is changing, consumption is changing and we haven't looked at it for a long time," said PepsiCo Thailand food and beverages head of marketing Brett Charlton. "Bellamy Hayden, OMD and MindShare are all current PepsiCo suppliers and they've all got modern approaches to how they handle media." The pitch is being split into planning and buying components for all of PepsiCo's media in Thailand, with all three agencies being considered for each function. "What I want to focus on is modernising our approach under (PepsiCo's) 'Power of one' strategy," added Charlton. "There's efficiencies to be gained by bringing beverages and foods under one banner."
The 'Power of one' is PepsiCo's global initiative designed to push the company's businesses to approach the marketplace more cohesively. Charlton was clear in stating that the review was purely a Thailand operation at the moment. "All of the (local markets) would be at varying levels of integration," he said. "So it would be very much a market-by-market approach. What's right here might not be right in Hong Kong or China."
OMD recently won the Frito-Lay China business from MindShare, although the GroupM unit currently handles the bulk of PepsiCo beverage business in Asia, including South Asia, China and Southeast Asia. OMD, meanwhile, handles PepsiCo Hong Kong.
