Dive Brief:

• Unilever is coming to the end of an agency procurement exercise that will likely result in a new digital agency roster and a new agency selection process for its brands. 
• The main goal of the project — which involved agencies like Edelman, Profero, Noise, and 360i — was to cut costs by streamlining and centralizing the agency selection process, which used to be handled on the individual brand level. 
• At the end of this trial period, Unilever should have a list of agencies for its brand to choose from, and funding to the agencies will come from a company-wide marketing budget rather than individually.

Dive Insight: 

Agencies that made the short list for Unilever stand to benefit greatly from the decision. It will be interesting to see whether centralizing all agency selection will actually cut costs for the corporation and if the selection process actually finds each brand ideally. Obviously, individual Unilever brands will still have a strong say in the agency choice, but will it be the best if things are always narrowed down for the brands first?