Coca-Cola Middle East has reappointed UM MENA as its media agency of record after holding a competitive pitch in spring this year.
The global beverage giant handed the multimillion-dollar, full-service media and digital account to the Dubai-headquartered incumbent agency after considering pitches from Starcom and MediaCom, Campaign has learnt.
MCN-owned UM MENA has held the account in the Middle East and North Africa for the past eight years.
UM also has the Coca-Cola account in other global markets, including the $400-million North American brief, which it won from Mediavest in July last year.
The account retention follows a number of wins for UM MENA, including Rani Refreshments, Barbican and most recently the Saudi Arabian pastry company Saadeddin.
Part of global holding company IPG Mediabrands, UM MENA was also named media agency of the year for the first time ever at this year’s Dubai Lynx.
Neither UM or Coca-Cola Middle East was able to comment at the time of going to press.
Meanwhile Coca-Cola’s creative accounts in the Middle East remain with fellow MCN-owned brand FP7, alongside J.Walter Thompson and Memac Ogilvy.
However, the company parted ways with Y&R Dubai last summer, just months after the agency won two Grands Prix at Dubai Lynx for the brand with the ‘Hello Happiness Phone Booth’ campaign. The month after the festival saw a wave of senior departures from Y&R including the regional CEO Joseph Ghossoub and Dubai managing director Nadine Ghossoub.
On a global level, Coca-Cola recently dropped its long-running ‘Open Happiness’ campaign.
Its most recent global campaign ‘Taste the Feeling’, which aimed to put the product at the centre of every ad, launched in the Middle East earlier this year.
Editorial change: Campaign amended this story on August 28 to reflect that MediaCom was the third agency competing for the account, not Carat.
