The multi-brand FMCG retainer pattern.
FMCG groups with two or three Australian brands often default to running them as separate agency engagements. The result is two strategies, two reporting cadences, two account teams that don't talk. We've built a third option, one retainer, multi-brand, transparent per-brand line items.
The Gorilla Glue + O'Keeffe's pattern
121 Group manages the Australian B2C arms of two global FMCG brands, Gorilla Glue (adhesives) and O'Keeffe's (skincare for working hands and feet), under a single multi-brand engagement. Both are owned by the same global parent. Both run on WooCommerce. Both have an Australian B2C presence that needs distinct creative, distinct ad accounts, but shared agency infrastructure.
The line-item structure
Every monthly Xero invoice has explicit per-brand line items:
- Per-brand webhosting and maintenance
- Per-brand webhosting and maintenance
- A per-brand digital agency fee
- A per-brand digital agency fee
- Per-brand media spend passed through at cost
- A media-buying rate card applied to ad spend at cost, across both brands
- "20 x Development / Creative Block Hours" (pooled across brands)
The brand-level CFO can see exactly what's being spent on which brand. The procurement officer at the parent can reconcile spend allocations against budget. No shared overhead allocations, no creative accounting.
Why this beats two separate engagements
Three reasons:
- Strategic coherence. One senior strategist sees both brands' performance side-by-side. Insights from Gorilla Glue's seasonal cycles inform O'Keeffe's seasonal cycles. Creative learnings cross-pollinate. The strategy isn't a function of two parallel feedback loops, it's one feedback loop with two distinct outputs.
- Shared overhead pool. The Block Hours pool flexes between brands as needed, when Gorilla Glue runs a campaign launch, hours flow there; when O'Keeffe's needs a homepage refresh, same pool. Each brand benefits from a larger effective creative team than they could justify standalone.
- Agency-side commitment. Multi-brand engagements deserve senior-strategist time. We'd staff two separate engagements with junior team. We staff a multi-brand engagement with the senior bench because the integrated value justifies it.
Where this pattern fits
The multi-brand FMCG retainer fits when:
- Two or three Australian brands under one parent group
- Each brand has distinct creative + distinct audiences but related categories
- Local AU operating team wants one Australian agency relationship
- Per-brand cost transparency is required by parent finance
- Ecom platforms are the same or compatible (e.g. both WooCommerce, both Shopify)
The scaled-up version
The same engagement shape scales to PE-backed multi-clinic healthcare portfolios, Partnered Health runs as one retainer covering 60+ clinics under multiple brand identities, with per-brand transparent line items, shared portfolio dashboards, and one senior healthcare strategist as the engagement lead. Same model, different vertical, different scale.
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Multi-brand FMCG group?
Forty-five-minute call. We'll quote a single multi-brand retainer with transparent per-brand line items and a flat Media Buying Rate Card on ad spend at cost.
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