{"id":933380,"date":"2026-09-11T07:16:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T12:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/11\/certainly-a-disappointment-omnicom-cfos-verdict-on-losing-pepsico-to-publicis\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T07:16:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T12:16:00","slug":"certainly-a-disappointment-omnicom-cfos-verdict-on-losing-pepsico-to-publicis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/11\/certainly-a-disappointment-omnicom-cfos-verdict-on-losing-pepsico-to-publicis\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Certainly a disappointment\u2019: Omnicom CFO\u2019s verdict on losing PepsiCo to Publicis"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Seb Joseph<\/a><\/span> \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 September 10, 2026<\/span> \u00a0\u2022<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n Ivy Liu <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Omnicom\u2019s CFO is still trying to get his head around what went wrong. It\u2019s been a little over a week since the holdco lost one of its longest running clients to Publicis. He called the loss \u201cdisappointing\u201d and \u201cunfortunate.\u201d Now, he and the rest of the C-suite are doing a post-mortem to figure out why it happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs\u2019 Communacopia and Technology Conference earlier today, Phil Angelastro\u00a0 gave a sobering take on PepsiCo\u2019s decision to walk away after more than 25 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Pepsi situation is an unfortunate one,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s certainly a disappointment from our perspective \u2014 you cannot sugarcoat it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The comments all but confirm that this move blindsided Omnicom\u2019s execs. Holdco bosses like Angelastro usually see this kind of switch coming. Sources with knowledge of the matter said his team didn\u2019t, and has spent the past week trying to work out why. Why would PepsiCo after all those years walk away from Omnicom without even giving it the chance to fight for it? Speculation has been rife. Was it because PepsiCo\u2019s CMO had a relationship with Publicis in a previous role? Or maybe the advertiser simply wasn\u2019t impressed with whatever Omnicom was pitching in the wake of the IPG acquisition. <\/p>\n

Whatever the reason, Omnicom will want it nailed down fast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing a detailed kind of deconstruction of how it happened and what we should have been doing differently to prevent it from happening,\u201d Angelastro said at the conference. \u201cWe are not completed with that process but we are going to learn some lessons from this, and certainly we are going to take them very seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

In short, he said the holdco isn\u2019t looking for excuses during this analysis. The aim, Angelastro\u00a0continued, is to do a root cause analysis so that we can improve the business and our processes going forward.\u201d That matters most for holding onto what\u2019s left of the PepsiCo relationship since Omnicom still handles the company\u2019s PR, creative and some sports marketing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It could also help the holdco get ahead of other CMOs who might be watching PepsiCo\u2019s move and wondering if they should follow suit. Those clients will want to know what happened and whether it changes anything for them. Needless to say Angelastro has some tough questions in the weeks ahead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to have a significant impact on the business going forward when we get to 2027 and our expectations,\u201d the ad exec said. \u201cThere is still quite a bit of time between now and \u201827 and we will be aggressively pursuing new business as we always do.\u201d<\/p>\n

His confidence lines up with the numbers, even if the underlying figures come from outside estimates rather than Omnicom\u2019s own disclosures. According to ComVergence, PepsiCo\u2019s core global media spend sits at roughly $1.8 billion. Madison and Wall estimates Omnicom\u2019s actual fee revenue from that business at closer to $100 million, a fraction of the headline figure, against a company running a 21% EBITA margin. That\u2019s an abosrbale hit on the holdco\u2019s bottom line based on the numbers available. The exposure that is harder to model is reputational \u2013 more than 25 years with a client, Apple, Renault-Nissan, McDonald\u2019s and several others all running on the same kind of long, unreviewed relationship Omnicom just watched come apart.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether that means Omnicom goes after Coca-Cola\u2019s media business, which is now in play following Publicis\u2019 decision to relinquish its North America media account and back out of contesting the rest of it after\u00a0the PepsiCo deal remains to be seen. If it is, Angelastro offered scant detail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe value the relationship [with PepsiCo] but certainly there will be a little but more flexibility in terms of what we pursue in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

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\n More in Media Buying<\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Seb Joseph<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Seb Joseph \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 September 10, 2026 \u00a0\u2022 Ivy Liu Omnicom\u2019s CFO is still trying to get his head around what went wrong. It\u2019s been a little over a week since the holdco lost one of its longest running clients to Publicis. He called the loss \u201cdisappointing\u201d and \u201cunfortunate.\u201d Now, he and the rest of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":933381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22716,44913,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-933380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-certainly","category-disappointment","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/933381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}