E-commerce giant Amazon have appointed IPG's Initiative to handle their global media duties, supplanting WPP's Mindshare to the business.

The work will encompass traditional and digital formats across all territories minus the United States, where digital media is handled by MEC. Amazon's global advertising expenditure in 2012 is estimated at $500m by Kantar.



According to Ad Age:

In addition to incumbent Mindshare, shops that participated in an early round of the review included Initiative, Publicis Groupe's Zenith and Mindshare sister agency MediaCom. In the final round Initiative went up against the Group M shops.

Despite the ongoing tax row with the British treasury, Amazon's revenues for 2012 were up 27% on the previous year, a total of $61 billion.