Seventeen years is a long time in advertising, which is to say it is roughly four holding company reorganizations, three rounds of apocalyptic predictions about the death of traditional media, and one complete transformation of how human beings buy printer ink.
Hewlett-Packard has decided that is long enough. The computer and printer giant has handed its global media account to Publicis Media, ending a relationship with Omnicom Media Group that began when the iPhone was still a year away from existence and "digital channels" was not yet a phrase that accounted for 69 percent of anyone's media budget.
The decision followed what sources described as a closed pitch between the two holding company networks, which concluded earlier this spring. HP declined to comment on the specifics of the review, which is the sort of thing companies decline to comment on.
The account represents approximately $194 million in global media spending, according to COMvergence, with the substantial majority of that investment now flowing to digital channels. (One imagines the print allocation has declined somewhat since 2007, though HP would presumably prefer you not think too hard about the trajectory of the printer business generally.)
For Omnicom, the loss removes a client that had been part of the portfolio since the second Bush administration. For Publicis, it represents another addition to a media roster that has grown considerably in recent years, as the French holding company has positioned itself as a data-and-technology-forward alternative to its rivals.
Mr. Arthur Sadoun, the chief executive of Publicis Groupe, has made no secret of his ambitions in the media space.
HP, for its part, continues to navigate a market in which the personal computer is no longer quite the center of the digital universe it once was. A new media agency will not change that, but it will at least provide fresh company for the journey.
Original story published in adweek.com: "EXCLUSIVE: HP Hands Global Media to Publicis, Ending Omnicom's 17-Year Run"