Superdrug's Owner AS Watson Pulls Its Media Off WPP's Mindshare
Updated: Sep 1
TL;DR: AS Watson has moved Superdrug's UK media account off WPP's Mindshare after a review — one more blow to WPP after a summer of high-profile losses.
What just happened
AS Watson, the Hong Kong-headquartered retail giant that owns Superdrug and The Perfume Shop, has moved Superdrug's UK media planning and buying account off WPP's Mindshare, Campaign reported on 21 August 2026. Mindshare had held the business since 2013 and re-won it as recently as 2019.
The winning agency has not yet been named publicly. Superdrug's media budget is estimated to be worth eight figures a year, making this a meaningful retention loss for WPP Media at a moment when it is fighting to keep Coca-Cola and pitching for Ikea's global business.
Why WPP keeps taking hits in 2026
This is the fourth big-brand media account WPP has been on the wrong side of in as many months, following Morrisons switching to Publicis Zenith in 2025, Novo Nordisk moving $520m of US media to Omnicom, and the Ikea Ingka RFI opening up. The pattern isn't random: it maps to retailers and pharma advertisers who all want deeper retail-media and first-party-data capability from their agency, and it is on that criteria that incumbents are struggling.
Publicly available data from R3 and Comvergence show WPP has net-lost more UK media revenue than any holding company in the last 12 months. The board's answer — the WPP Media rebrand and heavy investment in the Open X AI stack — is credible, but pitches take 18 months to reflect strategy changes, and pain is landing first.
Marketing Minute's read
The lesson for UK brands watching this: agency incumbency is now valued on capability, not just history. If your incumbent cannot show you a live retail-media integration, a first-party data clean-room in market, or an AI planning workflow with named client outputs, they are one bad month from being on the pitch list themselves.
For Superdrug specifically, the timing lines up with parent AS Watson pushing hard on its own retail media network (Superdrug ranked among the top 10 UK grocery/health advertisers on the IPA Bellwether last quarter) — and any new agency will be judged on how well it plays with in-house data teams, not just how cheaply it buys ITV.
Quick FAQ
Q: Who used to run Superdrug's media?
A: WPP's Mindshare, since 2013 (and re-appointed after a review in 2019).
Q: Why is this a big deal for WPP?
A: It is the fourth high-profile media loss in months for WPP, after Morrisons, Novo Nordisk and the Ikea Ingka RFI. Together they signal retailers and pharma clients are asking for deeper retail-media and first-party-data capability.
Q: How big is the Superdrug UK media account?
A: Estimated at an eight-figure annual spend, making it a meaningful retention loss for WPP Media.
When a retailer that has stuck with the same media agency for a decade suddenly swaps, it's rarely about the last bad month — it's about whether the incumbent can plan the next five years of retail media, first-party data and AI. That is the real test WPP is being asked to pass across five accounts this summer. — Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing
The takeaway: incumbency is not a moat anymore — capability is. Retailers now buy media agencies for retail media and data, not for planning muscle memory.
How would your incumbent media agency score if you graded them on retail media, first-party data and AI planning today — not on last year's TV work?
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
Sources: Campaign, R3, Comvergence, IPA Bellwether.
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Written by Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing Ltd and Marketing Minute
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