The Supply Side briefs : Walmart changes media agencies, TracFone buys Walmart Family Mobile

Earlier this year Wal-Mart Stores parted ways with MediaVest, its North American media agency of record for nine years and has recently selected Minneapolis-based Haworth Marketing for its multimillion U.S. media account, according to MediaPost News.

News reports indicate Wal-Mart and Haworth had been in talks since April. Prior to that Haworth had been the agency of record for Target, which is now with GroupM in its own dedicated agency also in Minneapolis.

Kantar Research pegs the Walmart U.S. media spend somewhere between $600-$700 million annually. Including Sam’s Club and Walmart.com the account is worth about $900 million.

• Wal-Mart prepaid mobile business sold to TracFone
Prepaid mobile phone service provider TracFone recently acquired Wal-Mart’s Family Mobile operation from T-Mobile. No terms from the deal have been released. TracFone did say this deal added 1.4 million subscribers to the 26 million already in its family.

Walmart launched Family Mobile in 2010 as a virtual network operator of T-Mobile U.S. The reason for launching the service was to provide best quality headsets on leading wireless networks for prepaid connections.

With this deal customers at 4,600 Wal-Mart Stores in the U.S. will have access to multiple TracFone prepaid services including Net10 Wireless, Straight Talk, federally-subsidized lifeline program SafeLink and Walmart Family Mobile.

Analysts said in rural regions the wireless game is about who has the best prices and that’s an advantage for Wal-Mart and likely why TracFone made the purchase. That said, TracFone’s competitors Cricket and MetroPCS are also building hundreds of retail locations across the U.S. to expand their reach.

TracFone is a subsidiary of Mexican telco America Movil and operates its brands on the networks of all five major U.S. carriers.