$14M recovered from a global media and agency estate.
A global CPG company was spending across dozens of agencies, markets, and media partners with no single view of what it bought, who added value, and what senior talent it was actually paying for.
Situation
Media and agency spend had grown market by market. Regional agencies overlapped with global ones. Account teams were staffed with juniors billed at the rates agreed for the senior people who won the pitch. Intermediaries were reselling media inventory the brand could buy directly, and a share of the media itself was low-performing inventory nobody had challenged. Busy work, reporting, and adaptation were still being billed at pre-AI hourly rates.
What we did
We audited the full media estate from log-level data and contracts, benchmarked every agency fee and rate card, and mapped the roster against the business need. We consolidated agencies and removed duplicated account structures, then reshaped the vendor and services contracts so the brand paid for senior leadership on the account rather than for headcount. Intermediaries reselling media without adding value were cut and replaced with direct and curated supply. Low-performing inventory was removed. Routine production, adaptation, and reporting were automated and the rate cards reset to reflect it.
Outcome
Fourteen million dollars a year recovered, a smaller and more senior agency roster, contracts the procurement team can govern, and a media supply chain the brand controls. Performance improved as the waste came out.
Facing something similar?
Fifteen minutes. We’ll tell you whether the pattern matches and what we’d do first.