Henkel, one of the world's leading FMCG manufacturers with brands such as Persil, Dac, Pril, Palette and Theramed, has consolidated its media account across the whole MENA region for the first time and appointed OMD after an extensive pitch process.

OMD will manage Henkel's extensive portfolio of brands from three sub-hubs, the GCC from Dubai, the Levant from Beirut and Egypt & North Africa from Cairo. Other markets will be added to this footprint as they grow in significance to Henkel.

The pitch, which was managed and evaluated by both the regional team in Cairo and the global team in Dusseldorf, included three stages and involved a total of three media agency networks. Prior to this consolidation, Henkel was working with different agencies in various regions.

"OMD has clearly and effectively demonstrated how it will deploy its resources and strengths consistently across our brands and markets and was the unanimous choice of all the people involved in the evaluation at brand, regional and global level," declared Mohamed Siam, Henkel's regional business development director. "We look forward to working with OMD's local and regional teams to derive the full benefits that we expect from this consolidation of our media investments."

"It is pitches like this that validate the strength and quality of a network," commented Elie Khouri, CEO of Omnicom Media Group MENA, the holding of OMD. "If we've achieved one thing here it is to demonstrate that OMD is the most consistently strong network in the region. To be of any use to a client, an office needs to be a whole lot more than a sign on a door. It takes people, skills, knowledge, technology and relationships to make a difference on the ground. Henkel shares this vision and has found in OMD the partner it needs to achieve its full potential across the large region that is MENA."

"This decision validates our drive into North Africa, with the opening and strengthening of our operations there. This, combined with our strength in the GCC and the Levant, has proved to be a decisive factor in our appointment," explained Shadi Kandil, managing director of OMD UAE. "It has been an intense pitching process, during which some 40 people across our network produced well over 1000 hours of work, hundreds of documents and thousands of programming codes. The competition was fierce and this made winning Henkel's AOR for the region even sweeter."

The appointment is effective immediately.