The health care giant is putting its global media buying and planning - not creative advertising - up for review, which is creating a stir among ad agencies. Several recognizable names are expected to take part in the scramble - Universal McCann, OMD, Initiative and MindShare.

The move comes after the recent $16.6 billion acquisition of Pfizer’s consumer healthcare biz, which “created an opportunity to reevaluate our media agency relationships,” says a J&J spokesman. The review is also prompted, in part, by an “increasingly diverse media landscape,” which is another way of referring to the Internet.

In the US, J&J spent $1.3 billion in measured media last year, according to Advertising Age, citing data from TNS Media Intelligence. Meanwhile, global ad spending fell by 10 percent, although J&J is believed to be shifting ad dollars toward unmeasured media, which is lingo for web sites, search engines and the like, as opposed to traditional venues, such as TV and print.

Certainly, $3 billion is a lot of money. Hopefully, those dollars will be used to promote more than over-the-counter items such as Band-Aids, Listerine and Tylenol. Look at it this way. If the budget is stretched to include prescription drugs, perhaps J&J marketers won’t be tempted to engage in off-label marketing, which three US Attorneys are investigating concerning the Risperdal schizophrenia pill, the Natrecor heart med and the Topamax migraine drug.

Further reading here:
AdWeek;
Ad Age (registration required);
Reuters;
J&J’s March 12 statement about the investigation. [tags]advertising, Initiative, Interpublic, Johnson & Johnson, MindShare, OMD, Universal McCann[/tags]