Publicis defends Singapore whole of government master media agency account

Publicis Media's Starcom-led team has successfully defended its Singapore whole-of-government (WOG) account as its master media agency, as announced on the government's GeBiz website.

The fresh mandate is for a three-year period with an option to extend for another two years, representing a critical win for one of Publicis Media's largest APAC accounts. When Publicis won the SGD$80 million account in 2018, its appointment was for just one year, then extended by a further two years. 

Singapore's Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) invited agencies to tender for the WOG contract in October 2021, receiving submissions from all interested agencies by November. GroupM and OMD were among five companies vying for the master media agency mandate. The same tender also invited submissions for MCI's panel of media planning and buying agencies and its panel of content publishers. R3 had already been contracted a year ago to lead the review of MCI's media buying services contracts.

Among the 17 successful agencies named to the media and planning buying panel are: ADK Connect, Starcom, Mediatropy, Spark Foundry, Group M, IPG Mediabrands, OMD Singapore and Brainlabs. 

According to the tender, the role of the master media agency is to manage the overall planning, coordination, execution and evaluation of media buys for digital and non-digital media platforms across the whole-of-government. This includes developing an integrated digital and non-digital media strategy and plan than includes audience insights, channel strategy, budget allocation, resource optimisation and effective measurement metrics based on data-driven insights on audience behaviour and media consumption habits. It also prescribes running a hub team responsible for centralisation of WOG media services, standardising workflows and providing thought leadership and digital governance. 

The panel of media planning and buying agencies tender is to manage the individual planning, execution, and evaluation of often smaller scale, agency-specific media buys for each customer, across digital and non-digital media platforms. 

The panel of content publishers is a non-exclusive list of publishers meeting minimum audience requirements for WOG users to tap for projects at discounted rates. 

Campaign Asia-Pacific has reached out to Publicis, R3, GroupM and OMG for comment.