And now the final blog post on the ground-breaking events at the Good Pitch Week by Stefan Bradley, Research, Insight and Operations Director at The Art of New Business.
Good Pitch Week came to an end with the inside story of Novartis’s 2011 global media pitch. Giving their unique perspectives on this complex and challenging review were Sharon Spina, VP Global Purchasing at Novartis Consumer Health; Tom Denford, founding partner of ID Comms and Matt Blackborn, president of emerging markets at winning agency Starcom MediaVest Group.
Novartis is one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies, with 5 divisions operating in 100+ markets, more than 50 brands on their books and $60bn annual sales. There had been no media review since 2004 and across the different divisions and markets there were ongoing contracts in place with 47 different media agencies.
By 2011, with TV effectiveness deteriorating and the need to partner with a digital specialist media agency, Novartis decided to call the global review. The aim? To replace the multiple agencies on their roster with just one media agency across all divisions and markets and move from TV buying to integrated comms planning and media excellence.