Abintus Secured 28% Media Savings for Pernod Ricard Northern Europe

Industry

Spirits and Wines

Challenge

Pernod Ricard Northern Europe sought to partner with a single media agency group capable of covering all markets with strong local expertise, delivering synergies and economies of scale across the region. They also aimed to ensure competitive media pricing and full transparency in media spending.

Results

Abintus Consulting managed the media agency pitch and ongoing PRF Management for PRNE, leading to an overall media savings of 28%. By implementing a standardised hybrid agency base fee model and rigorous performance evaluations, PRNE achieved significant improvements in working and non-working media across all key markets.

Key Service(s)

Pitch Management, PRF Management

www.pernod-ricard.com

28%

Overall Savings

€4.9M

Net Media Spend

€1,372K

Savings Secured

Markets Covered

"Abintus has been instrumental in helping us achieve significant media savings while ensuring high-quality media placements. They are very thorough, deliver what they say, extremely organised, and very competent."

Miyako Soeda Thornton

Head of Marketing, Pernod Ricard Northern Europe

About Pernod Ricard

Pernod Ricard is the world’s second-largest wine and spirits company, with a portfolio of premium brands including Absolut, Jameson, Havana Club, and Malibu.

Headquartered in Paris, the group operates in over 160 markets worldwide. Pernod Ricard Northern Europe is a regional business unit covering seven markets across the Nordics and Baltics.

The Challenge

Pernod Ricard Northern Europe (PRNE) was working with multiple media agencies across the region, resulting in fragmented ways of working, inconsistent reporting, and limited cross-market synergies.

To drive greater efficiency, PRNE wanted to consolidate its media operations under one agency or agency group, and thus creating a unified approach, a single set of standards, and shared reporting across all markets.

A key objective was to unlock savings and get more value from their media budget by merging markets together. However, PRNE needed expert support to structure the process in a way that would deliver tangible results, ensuring promised efficiencies and savings would be real, not just theoretical.

The Solution

To address these challenges, PRNE appointed Abintus Consulting to lead a regional media agency pitch aimed at consolidating operations and securing a best-in-class media agency contract.

Abintus leveraged the pitch process to negotiate significantly improved commercial terms, including media price and quality commitments, agency remuneration, AVBs (agency volume benefits) guarantees, and digital media technical cost commitments. These were all linked to a robust Performance Related Fee (PRF) scheme with clearly defined bonus and malus mechanisms.

To ensure promised savings and performance levels were not just theoretical, Abintus continued managing the PRF scheme throughout the contract duration, hence holding the appointed media agency accountable for delivery and applying penalties in case of underperformance.

The Results

While a media agency pitch can generate strong savings commitments, those figures remain theoretical unless performance is continuously monitored. Thanks to Abintus ongoing PRF Management, PRNE was able to turn promised savings into actual results.

The overall media savings amounted to 28%, with a annual net media spend of €4.9M and a total net saving of €1,372K across the seven markets after Year 1. These results were further improved in Year 2 by 7% despite media price inflation.

This outcome highlights the importance of holding agencies accountable against their pitch commitments, and the role Abintus plays in transforming savings potential into measurable financial impact.