adidas’ appointment of Omnicom Media Group signals more than an account change. With marketing at €3.079 billion, 12.4% of net sales, and the FIFA World Cup 2026 as the campaign axis, the move reflects a brand reconfiguring its media stack at peak investment scale.
Effective July 1, 2026, adidas has tapped Omnicom Media Group (OMG) as its new global media agency of record. The transition closes out the brand’s eight-year tenure with WPP, shifting an account reportedly valued at $512 million to OMG’s specialist network, PHD.
The appointment lands as adidas is scaling its marketing infrastructure at pace. In 2025, the company committed €3.079 billion to marketing and point-of-sale expenditure — up 8% year-on-year, representing 12.4% of net sales — channeled through “You Got This” and “The Original” campaigns and cultural partnerships with the Audi F1 team, Liverpool FC, Oasis, and NBA star Anthony Edwards. The transition comes as adidas ramps up marketing activity ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026, where the brand supplies official match balls and national kits.
EssenceMediacom had held the account since WPP’s Mediacom won the business from Dentsu’s Carat in 2018; a 2023 combination of Mediacom and Essence brought it under the EssenceMediacom banner, which then defended the mandate in the latest review. Publicis also competed. Neither adidas nor Omnicom publicly commented on the appointment at the time of reporting.
The assignment is housed at PHD, OMG’s specialist media planning and buying network, whose client roster spans Google, Volkswagen, Audi, and 7-Eleven. PHD will work through a model structured around data, audience identity, and analytics across OMG’s broader network — a brief that arrives alongside the agency’s strongest competitive moment in recent memory: a Media Grand Prix at the 2026 Cannes Lions Festival for Uber Eats’ “Build Your Own Super Bowl” campaign.
For OMG, the adidas mandate extends a run of major global account wins. In March, the group was appointed Dyson’s global media planning and buying agency. Effective the same date as the adidas transition, OMG also assumed IBM’s global media AOR spanning the Americas, EMEA, Japan, and Asia-Pacific.
