After a six-month review process, Unilever has retained Mindshare to handle its business in South Asia, including India, and Thailand, as well as the US, Canada, Western Europe and South and Central Europe.
Sir Martin Sorrell, reacting to the news, told Campaign India that he was 'delighted'.
Ashutosh Srivastava, CEO, Mindshare, Asia Pacific and R. Gowthaman (pictured, right), leader, Mindshare, South Asia refrained from making any comment till the news was official. Vikram Sakhuja, CEO, GroupM, South Asia (pictured, left) was unavailable for comment..
The announcement sees the FMCG giant split its US$5 billion global media business between Mindshare, Interpublic Group (IPG) and Omnicom Media Group (OMG).
OMG retains Unilever's Eastern Europe account. In December last year, PHD was appointed to the account in Greater China. OMG also picked up Hong Kong and Taiwan. Taiwan was previously handled by Initiative.
Sources close to the Greater China pitch said that PHD had triumphed following a contest against the incumbent Mindshare, Interpublic's Mediabrands and Carat.
Meanwhile, Unilever’s Latin America and Russia business will be consolidated with IPG.
Unilever called the review of its media account in July last year and at the time agencies from WPP, OMG and IPG contended for the account on a region-by-region basis. In October, the brand narrowed the field between Aegis, Mediabrands, Mindshare and OMG.
At the time, it was estimated that WPP's Mindshare handled 70 per cent of the global account.
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