Kimberly-Clark launches global creative and media review

Kimberly-Clark Corp. has launched a global creative and media review meant to consolidate its agency roster, according to multiple people close to the situation. It’s a holding company pitch that could impact the work certain agencies do for brands such as Kleenex, Huggies, Scott, Poise, Cottonelle and Andrex, among others. The review may prove to be an expansion opportunity for Publicis Groupe, which won Kimberly-Clark’s U.S. media account last year. Publicis, WPP, Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group of Cos. are believed to be participating in the pitch, and each has existing creative or media assignments with the company globally. While the creative review is global, the U.S. is excluded from the media review. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Kimberly-Clark reported 2023 global advertising spending of $1.1 billion in its annual report, which noted that 50.7% of the company’s business is done in the U.S. The consumer products marketer had $545 million in 2023 ad spending, per Ad Age Datacenter, with $144 million in measured U.S. media spending in the first half of 2024 and $285 million in 2023, according to Vivvix, including paid social data from Pathmatics. “Kimberly-Clark is in the process of conducting a global RFP for media and creative duties (excluding our US media business),” a Kimberly-Clark spokesman said in a statement. “This is part of the implementation of our Powering Care strategy. We are doing this to better serve our brands and our evolving organizational structure.” Powering Care is a $1.5 billion restructuring program Kimberly-Clark launched earlier this year. Kimberly-Clark expects to complete the review by the end of 2024, the spokesman said. Ad Age Leading National Advertisers 2024 U.S. ad spending, rankings, analysis and profiles for the biggest marketers Click here Currently, K-C has hundreds of agency partners globally, according to sources. For example, Quality Meats and Droga5 have most recently worked on the Huggies account; VaynerMedia has handled some recent projects for Scot; and last week, Mischief launched a campaign for Kotex that promoted jeans with a see-through back pocket meant to show off, rather than hide, menstrual care pads. IPG’s FCB, which won K-C’s global family care brand assignments in 2018, has worked across multiple brands globally in the past including Kleenex and Cottonelle. Accenture’s Droga5 picked up the global baby care assignment, including the development of a global creative platform for Huggies, in 2019. See all of Ad Age’s 40 Under 40 honorees here The review comes five months after K-C named Patricia Corsi as its chief growth officer, replacing Alison Lewis, who retired from the company. Corsi was formerly chief marketing, information technology and digital officer of Bayer Consumer Health. K-C works with four global holding companies overall in addition to independents. While Publicis handles Kimberly-Clark media in the U.S., Omnicom Media Group and WPP’s Mindshare handle the company’s brands elsewhere. Representatives of Publicis, WPP, Omnicom Group and IPG declined to comment.

Kimberly-Clark launches global creative and media review

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