Coca-Cola’s Global Media Review Signals Advertising’s Next Big Power Shift

For most marketers, a media review is a procurement exercise. For Coca-Cola, it looks increasingly like a referendum on the future of modern marketing itself.

The beverage giant has launched a sweeping global review of its media business, covering most of its major international markets in what is shaping up to be one of the advertising industry’s most closely watched account battles of the year.

At stake is far more than media buying.

The review, facilitated by independent consultancy Mediasense, spans media, data science and technology, and pits incumbent WPP Open X against Publicis Groupe in a high-stakes contest that could reshape one of the world’s most valuable marketing relationships.

North America, where Publicis already manages Coca-Cola’s media business after winning the estimated US$785 million account in 2025, has been excluded from the review. So too have Japan and South Korea, where Coca-Cola continues to work with Dentsu. Everywhere else, however, appears open for reconsideration.

The language coming from Coca-Cola suggests this is not merely about cost efficiencies or agency performance scorecards.

More Than A Media Review

In explaining the rationale, Coca-Cola pointed to a broader ambition: modernising how it connects with consumers by moving beyond traditional media planning toward more technology-led approaches, including agentic tools.

That phrase matters. For decades, media agencies largely competed on buying power, planning expertise and relationships.

Increasingly, however, the battleground is shifting towards intelligence systems, predictive modelling, automation and AI-assisted decision-making.

Coca-Cola appears to be asking a bigger question: who is best equipped to build the operating system for modern marketing?

This is where the review becomes especially fascinating.

WPP Open X, created specifically to service Coca-Cola’s global business in 2021, represented one of advertising’s boldest experiments in bespoke client ecosystems. The model stitched together capabilities across media, creative, commerce, data and production under one unified structure spanning more than 200 countries.

By most accounts, the arrangement has been productive. Coca-Cola itself acknowledged that the partnership helped modernise its marketing and deliver “significant business value”.

Even Coca-Cola’s global chief marketing officer, Manuel Arroyo, spoke positively about the relationship earlier this year, describing it as a key part of helping shape “the future of marketing”.

Yet in today’s agency landscape, past success rarely guarantees future security.

Publicis Smells Opportunity

If WPP enters this review defending incumbency, Publicis arrives with momentum.

The French holding company has spent the last several years aggressively repositioning itself around data, technology and AI-enabled marketing systems.

Through acquisitions, platform investments and the integration of capabilities across media, commerce and analytics, Publicis has increasingly framed itself less as an agency network and more as a business transformation partner.

Its North America Coca-Cola win last year only strengthened that narrative.

Now, with global markets potentially in play, the company has an opportunity to extend its footprint deeper into one of the world’s most iconic brands.

For Publicis, this is about proving that its operating model scales globally. For WPP, it is about demonstrating that reinvention did not stop with the creation of Open X.

The Rise Of “Agentic Marketing”

Perhaps the most intriguing signal in Coca-Cola’s statement is its reference to “agentic tools”.

For marketers, this may well become one of the defining phrases of the next chapter of advertising.

Agentic systems go beyond conventional automation. Rather than simply executing tasks, they increasingly make decisions, optimise performance, recommend actions and continuously learn from outcomes.

In media terms, that could mean systems that autonomously adapt investment strategies, refine audience targeting in real time, simulate campaign outcomes or dynamically optimise performance across markets.

The implication is profound.

Media agencies may soon be judged less on how well they buy media and more on how intelligently their systems think.

If that sounds uncomfortable, it should. The agency model is quietly being rewritten.

What This Means For The Wider Industry

Coca-Cola’s review will inevitably send ripples through global marketing circles, not least because of the sheer scale involved.

With reported annual ad spending exceeding US$4 billion globally, the account remains one of the industry’s crown jewels.

But beyond the commercial implications lies a more important signal. Global marketers are no longer simply asking agencies to execute campaigns.

They are increasingly demanding operating partners that combine creativity, technology, predictive intelligence and measurable business outcomes under one roof.

The age of siloed agency disciplines appears to be fading.

While Coca-Cola has confirmed that creative and PR remain outside the scope of this review, the message is hard to ignore: modern marketing increasingly belongs to those who can unify data, intelligence and execution at scale.

For now, WPP Open X and Publicis will prepare their pitches. But the bigger story may not be who wins.

It may be what Coca-Cola’s decision reveals about where advertising itself is heading next.