Hasta La Creative!

AdAge reports that McDonald’s is launching a review and seeking to consolidate its local U.S. creative accounts.

“Building the modern, progressive company that we aspire to be involves changing the way we conduct business,” McDonald’s spokeswoman Terri Hickey said in a statement provided to AdAge. “In order to accelerate our efforts to engage customers across all platforms to advance our brand vision, we aim to streamline and modernize our local marketing efforts in 2018.”

According to the publication, sources close to the matter have claimed that the review will be handled by Select Resources International and will include both current roster agencies and newcomers, who will begin pitching on July 17. Beyond those details, not much appears to be known about which specific agencies are involved in the review.

According to AdAge, the shift can at least partially be attributed to the fast food giant moving more resources to We Are Unlimited, the dedicated agency Omnicom launched to service the client last November. McDonald’s decided to consolidate with the agency network in August, following a U.S. creative review launched in April.

McDonald’s chief marketing officer Deborah Wahl also announced that she was leaving the company three months ago. She was replaced by Morgan Flatley.

Among the agencies working on regional McDonald’s accounts are Zimmerman Advertising, Doner, H&L Partners, Stern and Bernstein-Rein, whose recent work for the client includes a campaign centered around a promotion tied to the Kansas City Royals and a March campaign promoting the Filet-O-Fish.

We’ve made it through the first six months of 2017 more or less intact, so it’s time to look back at some of our favorite advertising produced over that time. See below for some of the most clever, beautiful, interesting and entertaining TV, video, print, outdoor, digital and social ads from the year so far….

Creative shop David has excelled at leveraging social issues to build the Burger King brand, most famously with its celebrated “Proud Whopper” campaign from a few years back. These days, the agency-client team are literally giving a hand–of the 3D-printed, mechanical variety–to folks across Argentina. On July 5, the fast-feeder, recently feted as Marketer of…

Did you know that Shell Oil is the only major fuel brand that still operates in all 50 states? The company boasts 14,000 sites across the country, in fact. But the proprietary gas stations of big box retailers and grocery stores have become formidable competitors in the last 20 years, and now account for about half of the market, increasing the pressure on Shell to drive loyalty.

“Forty-two percent of all U.S. drivers frequent or come to Shell,” says Dan Little, the company’s head of marketing for North America. “But when it gets to loyalty, which is a measurement of frequency, we’re pretty much middle of the pack versus the other majors.” Little and his team hope to change this statistic with an innovative, many-pronged approach to building consumer loyalty.

The road to more rewards

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Welcome to the latest edition of Marketer’s Brief, a quick take on marketing news, moves and trends from Ad Age’s reporters and editors. Send tips/suggestions to eschultz@adage.com.

Alexa, get me a bigger CPG market share

Yesterday’s Prime Day suggests packaged goods play a central role in products in Amazon’s Alexa strategy. An analysis by Market Track shows that of 47 voice-activated “Alexa only” deals offered yesterday, 31, or nearly two-thirds, were for CPG products. Most of those were personal-care products such as conditioner, hand soap, lotion, skin care and sunscreen. Household products like air fresheners, toilet paper and laundry detergent also figured prominently. Market Track Marketing Director Ryne Misso found the CPG focus of the Alexa deals interesting, suggesting that “Echo and Alexa may play a role in Amazon’s expansion into consumables and grocery categories.”

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Prosecutors in Tokyo are sending a case against Dentsu Inc. to court after the 2015 suicide of a young employee who had complained about overwork and exhaustion, according to local newspaper reports. But individual Dentsu executives were not indicted in the case, which led to reforms and soul-searching about long hours and tough working conditions at the ad giant’s Japanese operations and at the country’s companies in general.

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office has sent Dentsu’s case to the city’s summary court on the charge that it had employees doing illegal overtime, The Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported. In Japan, summary courts hear cases involving fines or lighter punishments; reports said the court would decide whether to fine Dentsu.

Matsuri Takahashi, a 24-year-old Dentsu recruit in Japan, jumped from a window of her corporate dormitory in December 2015. She had complained on Twitter about how much she was working and how tired she was. Labor inspectors deemed her suicide a case of “karoshi,” a Japanese term that means “death from overwork.”

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Love him or hate him, Robert Kraft has taken the New England Patriots to new heights. Now a major video game marketer is hoping that the CEO of the Super Bowl-winning franchise can lend his magic touch to esports as the burgeoning industry lurches toward the mainstream.

Kraft will own one of seven founding franchises for Activision Blizzard’s Overwatch League. The league, which is expected to begin play later this year, eventually hopes to lure 28 teams to compete globally in the team-based shooting game, which Activision-Blizzard says has more than 30 million individual players worldwide.

While other esports leagues are borderless, the Overwatch League will be filled with city-based teams. Organizers hope the setup, which more closely mirrors traditional sports leagues, will make the league more appealing to sponsors and advertisers.

Continue reading at AdAge.com