The Warehouse Group is on the search for a single media partner to work across all of its brands.
The move will see the company move from working with six different media agencies across its brands to one media agency. It is unable to disclose who those agencies are.
The appointment of an agency is a closed process and The Warehouse Group has invited some of its existing agency partners to pitch.
Chief marketing officer Jonathan Waecker says the decision to work with one partner is not about procurement. Rather, it is about unifying its approach to media, attribution and measurement in an innovative way.
The hope is it will unlock creativity and optimise its ability to be flexible.
“The [existing]structure has not allowed media agencies to do their best,” says Waecker. “We need to change our behaviour to enable them to do their best.”
The Warehouse Group holds a number of trading, loyalty and private label brands the agency will be working across; including, The Warehosue, Warehouse Stationery, Noel Leeming, Torpedo7 and 1-day.co.nz.
The Warehouse Ltd has appeared within the top three spenders on advertising in the past three years. Between October 2016 and September 2017, it spent $66,701,357.
As well as a uniform approach to its media, Waecker adds the move to a single agency will help it to dial up its digital innovation – not a surprising plan considering he joined the company from Yahoo.
Waecker joined The Warehouse Group in November last year, leaving San Francisco and his job as vice president of marketing communications at Yahoo.
At the time, The Warehouse Group chief executive officer Nick Grayston said Waecker would help the company to build capability in personalised, automated marketing communications as it moves its mix away from traditional analogue channels into digital.
“His deep understanding of customer data and analytics to drive marketing performance and revenue, coupled with his strong background in helping consumer brands define and engage with their customers, makes him an ideal fit for this role,” Grayston said.
Despite the move to work with a single media partners, The Warehouse Group will continue to work with multiple creative agencies across its range of brands as each has its own identity.
Those partners include DDB, which has been delivering campaigns for The Warehouse; FCB, which has worked on Noel Leeming; and 99, which has worked on Warehouse Stationery.
There will, however, be one one change to the creative side and that will come in the form of an ECD who The Warehouse Group is looking for.
The ECD will look over all of the brands and Waecker is excited by the potential to take a look at what they all mean to New Zealanders and bring that culture into the creative.
“I’m most excited about unlocking who we were on our best day,” says Waecker.
