NEW DELHI: WPP (WPP.L), the world's biggest advertising company, will become a global marketing network partner for the Coca-Cola Company, the two companies said.

WPP also represents PepsiCo's business in markets like India, and will need to be clarified, industry executives said.

The contract is another fillip for WPP which last month raised its annual sales forecast and said that much better than expected third-quarter trading showed a structural change to its growth rate.

WPP will handle Coca-Cola’s media in eight of its nine geographical operating units and the large majority of its creative work, WPP Chief Executive Mark Read said in an email to staff which was sent to media.

"This is among our company’s greatest ever new business achievements, the largest win in decades, and a fantastic endorsement of the new WPP we have built together over the last three years."

Both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are big spenders on advertising, and spends are expected to further increase as they gear up for next summer after two consecutive Covid-19 waves.

One possibility could be two separate agencies within the WPP group working on the rival cola accounts in India, or PepsiCo aligning with another group, executives said.

WPP won the Coca-Cola business following one of the largest pitches of the year, which included IPG, Dentsu and Publicis also pitching for the account.

Coca-Cola said on Monday that WPP will be its “global marketing network partner” operating under a bespoke unit called OpenX, and added that the WPP team will manage creative, media, data and marketing technology across Coca-Cola’s entire portfolio of brands and its global ventures, including Costa coffee.

Coca-Cola said its relationship with WPP is “unprecedented” in its breadth and depth, as well as for the industry “given its geographical scale and reach.”