The debut last week of the ad "Mirrors" -- in which
Beyoncé gyrates to her new single, "Grown Woman" -- marked
the first project to come out of Galaxy.
"The idea of Galaxy is curating talented teams across the right
projects on Pepsi," said Brad Jakeman, president-global beverages
group. "Where the efficiency comes in, we're not buying a whole
agency infrastructure. We're curating the exact number of people at
the exact seniority with the exact capabilities we need."
PepsiCo, which last year drastically trimmed its roster of
agencies in the beverage space, has been talking for the past year
about building a "unique agency model" within Omnicom. For its
first global ad, launched a year ago, TBWA/Chiat/Day and BBDO
collaborated on the spot. The goal has been to get the best work
possible from a variety of shops without running separate agency
structures. The hope is that Galaxy will allow that to happen.
Whether it's the "brand-agency leader" structure that Procter & Gamble
uses or Red Fuse, the dedicated agency team for Colgate at WPP,
marketers have been experimenting with any number of agency models,
and the jury is still out on which works best.
PepsiCo marketing execs stress that the model they're building
is distinct. Unlike some of the dedicated agencies out there --
like the "team" approach for Ford, Mazda, Lincoln,
Bank of America
and Colgate at WPP -- Galaxy is a small team of only a handful of
execs with backgrounds in account planning and management
specifically. That group, working with Pepsi execs, evaluates
projects presented by the brand and determines which agency or mix
of talent within the Omnicom network is best suited for the job. In
the case of "Mirrors," it selected 180 LA.
"Omnicom is a really big name, but behind that big name exists a
massive and most talented bench of creative strategists and
production people," said Chris Mendola, chairman-founder of 180.
"Pepsi is really smart to recognize this and seek out the best and
most talented for Pepsi."
Still, it's not as if the entire network is made to compete for
Pepsi projects from Galaxy. The model is both "calculated" and
"thoughtful," Mr. Mendola said. "I don't know that agencies love
responding to jump balls. I know my agency doesn't. We like to have
a conversation with the client, make the work with the client, as
opposed to coming in and doing a ta-da presentation."
Mr. Jakeman said he wasn't interested in creating an entity
within Omnicom that lived and breathed the Pepsi brand alone; he
prefers those contributing to Pepsi advertising have exposure
working on other big brands, from autos to fashion.
"We're really benefiting from a much more expanded gene pool
than if we created a whole group of people that only worked on
Pepsi," Mr. Jakeman said. "And they're working on the teams, in the
environments they've chosen. They're embedded in the agencies
they've chosen to join."
One wrinkle the new agency model presents? The need for time.
Galaxy operates best when Pepsi is able to give Omnicom a very
clear brief with a long lead time. Providing the group insight into
the 18-month content strategy allows it to plan to have the right
creative talent available for the project, Mr. Jakeman noted.
There's interest more broadly within PepsiCo to use the Galaxy
model. For now it's limited to the global beverage group, but
marketers around the world, as well as the company's snack brands,
are exploring it.
Simon Lowden, CMO at Pepsi Beverages North America, said it's a
model that he's familiar with and that makes sense. Mr. Lowden, who
previously served as CMO-PepsiCo International, said that his
former team would often brief various offices of BBDO on projects
like the World Cup, despite the fact that BBDO, Paris, was its lead
agency at the time.
Mr. Lowden said he sees North America, Pepsi's biggest market,
embracing a structure that allows for "strategic ownership and
creative flexibility." By that he means the brand's relationship
with its lead agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day, won't change, but Pepsi could
look to other resources for certain projects. Already, it's worked
with outlets like Funny or Die to create popular videos around the
Super Bowl and, most recently, for Pepsi Max with Jeff Gordon's
prank "test drive."
Looking ahead, Galaxy is working on assigning more projects for
the brand, though Mr. Jakeman declined to provide specifics.
"[Galaxy] has generated some of the best work we have done on
Pepsi, the most efficiently," he said.
