IBM has awarded Omnicom its global media account following a review, handing one of the market’s more closely watched technology remits to a new holding group as the company continues to reassess its broader agency structure.
The decision was first reported by Ad Age on 9 April, which said IBM’s creative review is still ongoing. That means the media appointment has now been settled, but the company’s wider agency reset is not yet complete.
IBM put its global media business under review in December 2025. At the time, WPP Media, the incumbent on the account, chose not to defend the business, ending its run on media planning and buying for the technology company.
The scale of the account
The size of the remit helps explain why the pitch drew industry attention. COMvergence estimates IBM’s global media spend was about US$330 million in 2024, making it one of the larger media reviews in the technology sector.
That media decision lands at a time when IBM is leaning harder into enterprise AI, software and infrastructure growth. In its full-year 2025 results, IBM reported revenue of $67.5 billion, up 8 per cent, while chairman, president and chief executive officer Arvind Krishna said the company’s generative AI book of business had grown to more than $12.5 billion.
Creative review still in play
The unresolved piece is creative. In March, Campaign reported that WPP’s Ogilvy was no longer IBM’s creative agency of record, ending a 32-year relationship that dated back to 1994.
According to that report, Ogilvy chose not to participate in IBM’s creative RFP. The split marked the end of one of the longer-running client-agency relationships in global advertising, with the partnership spanning major IBM platforms including Smarter Planet, Watson, Think, and Let’s Create.
Taken together, the two reviews point to a significant reshaping of IBM’s global marketing set-up. Omnicom has now secured the media side of the business, while the outcome of the creative review remains to be seen.