What you need to know:

• L'Oreal has appointed Wavemaker as its new media agency following a long pitch.
• The move ends its long-term relationship with Dentsu's Carat.

L’Oréal Australia and New Zealand has appointed GroupM agency Wavemaker as its new media agency from 1 October.

The cosmetic giant completed the pitch, which was overseen by Ebiquity and which Carat said lasted almost a year, in line with its global corporate governance process.

The review focused on the "changes in the media landscape and ensuring the business can benefit from new talent and evolving agency capabilities".

Mi3 understands another key focus was digital media and e-commerce strategy were also a major focus of the pitch, in-line with ongoing changes within the business globally

L’Oréal's decision ends its long-term relationship with Carat, dating back to 2014. 

Wavemaker's success was attributed to its tools and processes, a strong team and an innovative approach to the challenges posed to the agencies as part of the review process.

Wavemaker is also the agency for a number of major international L’Oréal markets.

"After a thorough agency review, where we included both full service and specialised digital agencies, Wavemaker stood out as the best partner for our continued transformation into a beauty tech company," said L’Oréal CMO Matthijs van der Putten.

"During the process they showed that they have the right people and tools to support us in this transformation and our continued growth in e-commerce."

L'Oreal also bolstered its internal data and analytics capability earlier this year, hiring Christelle Young as its Chief Strategy & Analytics Officer for ANZ.

"L’Oréal is a global beauty leader, that is setting the pace with digital transformation, online beauty experience and growth in e-commerce sales," said Wavemaker ANZ CEO Peter Vogel.

"We are excited to partner with L’Oréal Australia & New Zealand on this incredible journey, and look forward to developing market-leading work that helps achieve its purpose of ‘creating beauty that moves the world’."

Dentsu Media CEO, Sue Squillace wished the brand well for the future. She thanked her Melbourne team for "an exceptional job" on the account, as well as "the broader agency who supported them through what has been a very long and intensive 10-month pitch.  Each and every one of the team involved should be very proud of what has been achieved during such a critical time in our industry, while managing business as usual".