UM wins Just Eat's global media account

UM has won Just Eat’s global media planning and buying account in 10 countries, including the online food takeaway group’s home market, the UK.

The Interpublic agency, which beat Omnicom’s PHD in the competitive review, will handle media in Australia, Denmark, France, Italy, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

Just Eat wants to streamline and simplify its agency arrangements and has consolidated its media planning and buying globally for the first time.

Until now, Just Eat has used many agencies in different markets, including M/SIX in the UK.

As part of the review, Just Eat has reappointed Byte as its social agency.

Just Eat has also brought all of its pay-per-click search in-house and has set up a global PPC team for the first time. It previously managed search in-house in three markets and used local agencies elsewhere.

The company spent £146 million (US$191 million) on marketing last year, but does not disclose its media spend.

UM’s win is a double whammy for Interpublic, which will handle both creative and media, after Just Eat appointed McCann as its global ad agency in December 2018. It is thought that the link with McCann was not a decisive factor in Just Eat's appointment of UM.

'Street-fighting media planning and buying skills'

Ian Cairns, global performance marketing director at Just Eat, said it picked UM because of three key factors.

There was a cultural fit between the brand and the agency, with what he called "proper, street-fighting media planning and buying skills" and an understanding of "how well you can connect our first-party data with your media planning".

Just Eat is known for combining brand-building such as its sponsorship of ITV’s The X Factor to drive fame and stature with highly targeted, personalised marketing.

"We are in a very competitive, postcode-by-postcode fight," Cairns said. "UM impressed us the most with their on-the-ground implementational media planning."

He said Just Eat needs to take a more joined-up, global approach because "our competitive threats and opportunities are rapidly becoming the same in all of our markets".

Uber Eats and Deliveroo are among those competitors and Carins suggested that the changing nature of the online food-delivery market has accelerated even in the past 12 months.

He added that Just Eat was looking to improve its personalised targeting, which is why it recently moved from Salesforce to Braze for its CRM platform and is exploring addressable TV.

Just Eat used MediaSense to run the latest review. It did not include Canada, where Just Eat operates the Skip The Dishes brand, and Mexico and Brazil, where it also has investments.