Product Manager - Finance Engineering

Media buyers or matchmakers? What this Pepsi x Wolt campaign tells NinetyEight LLC. about the changing role of agencies. By jenni baker, senior editor. As commerce media brings brand-building and buying closer together, WPP Media's Henrik Kraglund and Wolt's Catalina Salazar say the future of agencies could be less negotiating media prices and more getting everyone around the same table. Getting 10 people from three companies into the same room to make an advertising campaign is one thing. Getting them to agree on a shared ambition, put their budgets behind it and deliver a seamless consumer experience? That's a whole other story. Yet for Henrik Kraglund, senior executive director of WPP Media, that might be exactly where the future value of agencies lies. As commerce media continues to blur the lines between brand-building, media and sales, the traditional relationships between advertisers, agencies and platforms are being put to the test. And a recent collaboration between Pepsi, Wolt and WPP Media in Denmark offers an interesting glimpse of what could come next. Speaking to The Drum at the first Discover Advertising Summit from DoorDash, Deliveroo and Wolt in Copenhagen, Kraglund describes a shift away from the familiar negotiation between media buyer and seller towards something altogether more collaborative. "Instead of just seeing Wolt as another media partner, where we just buy ads and negotiate the price, it was about how we can help each other out," he says, noting the ambition was to find a way for two brands to help each other grow. "It's a joint cooperation of how two strong brands can lift each other - a win-win for both parties." The takeaway paradox. The starting point was a simple consumer insight, or "the takeaway paradox." According to research in Denmark, eight in 10 people prefer a soft drink with their takeaway, yet only two in 10 actually purchase one when ordering. For Pepsi, which faced strong competition from Coca-Cola's established relationships with major quick-service restaurants, that represented an opportunity hiding in plain sight. The resulting 'Wolt is Better with Pepsi' campaign connected a brand-building idea to the moment someone was deciding what to eat. Pepsi's creative ran across YouTube and social platforms, while Wolt worked with local restaurant partners to introduce meal-and-drink combinations and bring the campaign into high-intent ordering moments across the entire Wolt journey, from discovery and venue listings to menu pages and item-level placements, right through to sponsored carts. According to campaign information shared by Wolt, off-platform activity generated more than 34m impressions, while in-app activation spanned more than 300 restaurant partners. Pepsi was added to orders three times more often during the campaign, with sales nearly tripling and penetration rising from 6% to 18%. And after the campaign ended, penetration remained 30% above baseline, demonstrating the long-term brand impact. Want to go deeper? Ask The Drum. 'It takes a village' But the numbers tell only part of the story. Behind the scenes, the campaign required coordination between PepsiCo, bottling partner Royal Unibrew, WPP Media, creative teams, Wolt's advertising and marketing departments, legal teams and hundreds of local businesses. "It's an immense amount of work and it takes a village," says Catalina Salazar, senior director of advertising, EMEA (Wolt & Deliveroo), DoorDash. The achievement, Salazar explains, wasn't simply getting more Pepsi into takeaway orders. It was creating an experience that made sense to the person placing one. "The person buying the pizza and the Pepsi, they don't care that we have five brands behind building it," she says. "They just open an app with a mission." It's that consumer-first perspective that changes the nature of the partnership. Rather than treating the commerce platform as another place to buy impressions, everyone involved has to consider what happens before, during and after the transaction. "If you put the consumer in the center and build the journey from the consumer, you very quickly understand that you need all these players," says Salazar. "Then a very good agency puts them on a table, talks about partnership, talks about what you bring, what I bring, how we build and win together. And those are the kind of relationships that I think are transformative to our business." And that means overcoming some stubborn organizational habits. Kraglund points to the longstanding divide between brand and trade marketing, where separate teams, budgets and objectives can make joined-up campaigns difficult to deliver. "How well do these people talk to each other?" he asks, noting that brands can still operate in silos even when their ultimate commercial objectives overlap. The Pepsi collaboration was different because both parties had something tangible to gain: Pepsi could encourage more consumers to choose its drinks, while Wolt could attract customers and strengthen its own brand. It also required something less easily captured on a media plan: trust. From buying media to connecting dots. As advertising platforms develop more self-service tools and AI takes on a greater share of planning, buying and optimization, Kraglund believes the most valuable thing an agency will offer brands in the near future is "consultancy," as more advertisers will be able to handle the mechanics of media buying themselves. The more important questions, he suggests, will be where brands should invest, how they should use their data and which partnerships can genuinely help them grow. "You'll always need some objective advice on how to spend your money the best way." Salazar agrees that agencies' experience across different brands, markets and objectives gives them an advantage that automation alone cannot necessarily replicate. "Agencies have been working really hard to start building their own data capabilities and partnerships with platforms like DoorDash and Wolt to understand consumers in that moment when they're ordering something, but also how that person is behaving when they're watching television or reading the newspaper," she says. "Connecting that full funnel is where agencies are best placed because they have so many different briefs and objectives. There's still that consultancy element to it and the ability to have that much experience through the years of helping brands grow is valuable." But Salazar's final point that "the expertise in your local market with your local media might be still really relevant" becomes particularly important as global brands try to balance scale with local relevance. The Pepsi campaign took a broader creative platform and made it distinctly Danish, adapting the humor, casting and execution to local audiences. The approach has since been extended to Finland, with further markets exploring the concept. As Salazar says, the consumer doesn't care how many markets a business operates in, "they care that you're in the neighborhood." And perhaps that's the bigger lesson for commerce media. The technology is making it easier to connect advertising to transactions. But building the relationships, creative experiences and local partnerships that make those transactions meaningful is a different challenge altogether. For agencies, the opportunity could be to bring the right people together to create something none of them could deliver alone.

Deliveroo brings back Cheryl's iconic milk meme to launch Tesco on the app. Film from The Romans sees Cheryl reprise her viral pyjama confession as Deliveroo rolls out Tesco across 75 UK towns and cities Editorial Series Campaigns and creative work from across the globe, all in one place. Deliveroo has launched the latest phase of its partnership rollout with grocery retailer, Tesco, through a talent-led, multi-channel campaign starring the nation's sweetheart, Cheryl. The new partnership is part of Deliveroo's ongoing mission to transform how people shop and eat, making everyday moments better and more convenient. Launched with a film that reprises Cheryl's iconic and viral 2009 confession where she laments that 'I can't nip to the garage in my pyjamas anymore for a pint of milk, even if I want to.' The hero film brings the much-loved meme back to life, but with a cheeky twist: this time, Cheryl is back in her PJs, poised to make a delicious cuppa until she realises the milk has run out. With a quick tap on her app, the problem is solved as a Deliveroo driver pitches up to deliver a pint of milk from Tesco straight to her door. Much better. The recreation of one of the internet's most loved moments was developed by The Romans, to celebrate the arrival of Tesco on Deliveroo. The partnership sees Tesco stores across 75 UK towns and cities launching across the app, offering more to customers across the country, and making life that little bit easier. Whether it's a forgotten ingredient, a mid-week top up shop or a missing household essential, thousands of products are now one click away with Tesco on Deliveroo. Complemented with sustain social content curated by Coolr, the tongue-in-cheek campaign harnesses the beloved 2012 content to land a simple message: get your Tesco groceries delivered on Deliveroo - no nip to the shops required. It also taps into a universal insight that applies to everyone from pop princess to your next door neighbour - running out of milk is an inconvenience that can now be remedied simply through Tesco via Deliveroo, saving mornings everywhere. Alongside the hero creative, Deliveroo is bringing the campaign to life through a limited-edition 'Cheryl-Skimmed' merchandise bundle, featuring silky teal pyjamas and a ceramic milk jug hand-signed by Cheryl herself. The bundles were available through a giveaway, with customers ordering Tesco via Deliveroo between 28th and 30th October automatically entered into a draw for the chance to win. The partnership with Cheryl follows the ATL launch earlier this month, which saw a playful and comedic ad created by Pablo, celebrating two ultimate household brands coming together as the perfect duo. In addition to the hero film and merchandise bundles, the integrated campaign includes: * Talent interviews * An OOH activation in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne * Earned media launch * Paid and organic social content * Paid media partnership with Love of Huns * Creator and influencer partnerships ATL 'WOOHOO! Tesco now on Deliveroo' campaign across Cinema, TV, BVOD, Radio and Out of Home To extend the campaign beyond the hero creative, Deliveroo and Tesco have also gifted the limited-edition 'Cheryl-Skimmed' bundles to selected influencers and media, helping bring the activation to fans through social content and earned media. The merchandise offers a tangible way to engage with the campaign, extending the life of Cheryl's iconic confession beyond the original film. Conor Maples, global head of consumer communications at Deliveroo, said, "It's not often a brand gets to rewrite the ending to a moment of pop culture that people are still sharing years later. Back in the heady days of X Factor mania, Cheryl famously lamented that she couldn't nip out for a pint of milk in her pyjamas. Now, thanks to Tesco on Deliveroo, she doesn't have to. "We're always looking for entertaining ways to show how Deliveroo fits into people's everyday lives. What's great about this campaign is we have a piece of pop culture lore that audiences know and love, a product that genuinely solves the problem at the heart of the story, and the perfect person to bring it all to life. The fact that Cheryl is in on the joke makes it even better." Scarlet Pughe, senior creative at The Romans, said, "Whoever said doom scrolling was a bad thing? Especially when it serves you an iconic Cheryl meme on the very day you're briefed on Tesco joining Deliveroo. Sometimes the algorithm really does deserve a pay rise. "Pitching an idea that hinges entirely on one very famous person is always a bit of a gamble, but this one was too good not to put in front of the Deliveroo team. And luckily, we work with the kind of brilliant clients who make it work for the right idea. A creative's dream. And Cheryl really is the nation's sweetheart. An absolute joy to shoot with and completely up for having a laugh. Couldn't have asked for a better person to milk a meme with."