Drinkers unite

There is a good article in the current issue of AdAge about a a landmark deal that mega-marketers PepsiCo and Anheuser-Busch InBev have done. Together they spent more than $1.15 billion on U.S. measured media last year and are now pooling their scale to get savings out of media companies.

The arrangement is an evolution of a "joint-purchasing agreement" the two marketers signed in October. That pact was originally supposed to save the partners money on items such as travel, computers and office supplies. In fact, a PepsiCo spokeswoman at the time said that "the consortium is not related to media costs or marketing."

But less than three months later, A-B and PepsiCo have moved beyond scoring cheaper paperclips and onto network, cable, print and outdoor media buys. A-B and PepsiCo are believed to have already made joint approaches to media concerns such as NBC Universal, Turner and Condé Nast.

As the article then goes into say who will be next to decide to launch their own consolidated buying agreements in an effort to get more costs out of ad time. Then who could be next in line for this "joint-purchasing agreement": agencies ?

What about in the UK ? Could we see Morrisons and the COI team up perhaps ? Interesting area to debate through and let's see what happens in the US and if it spreads ?