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Signet Jewelers awarded its U.S. media business to Publicis Media following a brand-led review that kicked off in January.
As a result of this outcome, the brand will end its relationship with EssenceMediacom, the largest of WPP’s GroupM agencies. While Spark Foundry led the review on behalf of Publicis Media, it presented Signet marketing leaders with its Power of One solution, in which the holding company facilitates cross-agency collaboration to service its clients.
“I think of them all as Publicis, and that’s really part of the value for us,” Signet CMO Tony Rogers told Adweek. “That’s why we took the holding company approach … we like to have one person that we can call that’s overseeing the whole operation.”
Despite Publicis’ success displaying its cross-agency service model, Signet brand leaders ran a flexible process. They asked holding companies to select the best offerings from within their portfolio. Whether “the best offering” was a group-level or individual agency solution, was up to the holding companies to decide. The pitch required each contender to share their offering, and also to respond to a case study on Signet’s Zales brand.
“I’d say the consistency was [that] each of them brought really strong teams to bear. One of them actually brought together a patchwork of several different agencies within the holding company to pitch together, so the approach varied,” Rogers added.
Inside the review
Signet’s relationship with the incumbent, WPP, goes back to 2019, when MediaCom won the business from Omnicom Media Group and Publicis’ Digitas. MediaCom merged with its GroupM sister agency Essence to form EssenceMediacom in January.
The incumbent defended the business, according to sources familiar with the review, who also confirmed IPG and Omnicom’s GSD&M participated in the pitch. Omnicom declined to comment for this story, except to confirm GSD&M still handles creative for Signet’s Zales brand. A spokesperson for EssenceMediacom also declined Adweek’s request for comment, and an IPG spokesperson did not respond to Adweek by the time of this story’s publication.
Although MediaCom assumed AOR duties, the jewelry company partners with several agencies across its brand portfolio. For example, following the 2019 review, the creative agency McKinney retained its relationship with Signet’s Jared brand. Meanwhile, Zimmerman took on creative and strategy work for the Kay brand, and Badger & Winters became Zales’ agency of record. The most recent review was not a total consolidation, leaving room for other non-media agencies on the brand’s roster.