CPG conglomerate Kimberly-Clark recently launched a global creative agency review as it seeks to restructure the roster of shops responsible for marketing its extensive brand portfolio. The Irvine, Texas, personal-care products giant, whose brands include Kleenex and Huggies, has long worked with several WPP agencies, including Ogilvy and JWT. The review now forces the world’s…
Lowe’s has announced its new creative agency roster after ending a 12-year relationship with BBDO and abandoning the agency of record model. As Adweek’s AgencySpy reported in January, the three agencies are located in very distinct regions of the country: Conill in Los Angeles, Via Agency of Maine and South Carolina’s EP+Co. The unique structure…
Wyndham Hotel Group has consolidated its U.S. media planning and buying duties with MullenLowe Mediahub (Adweek’s U.S. Media Agency of the Year for 2017)–naming the “challenger” shop North American media agency of record. Lisa Checchio, senior vice president of global brands at Wyndham, told Adweek in an email that Mediahub’s “challenger mentality,” wealth of data,…
Family history and consumer genomics tool Ancestry.com is seeking new marketing partners less than a year after naming Droga5 as its creative agency of record. While the agency’s London office may continue working with the brand in some capacity, Ancestry.com will choose additional shops to handle its U.S. marketing efforts. “Droga5 New York and Ancestry…
Panda Express has selected Venice Beach, California-based creative agency and consultancy Wolfgang as its new agency of record, following a review launched in November. “For us this partnership means the world,” Wolfgang president Seema Miller said. “It’s just such a fantastic brand and so unique in the marketplace. It’s family owned, they truly care about…
The next round of big-budget media reviews has begun, and beneath it lies an existential threat to the established agency business model. Last summer’s rumored wave is now a real-world tsunami encompassing billions in RFPs from brands like Marriott, Mars, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Mondelez and more. But clients have learned from past mistakes; this time they’re…
Office Depot has awarded its global creative and media business to Y&R and Mediacom after a competitive review, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the business. One source said the win was part of a larger pitch by WPP. In the past, the holding group has formed agencies dedicated to specific clients like…
Daimler named Publicis as its new global agency network and digital agency partner for Mercedes-Benz, following a six-month review process conducted by Daimler’s internal team and global management consultancy The Observatory International. Arthur Sadoun announced the news today, referring to it as “the biggest pitch in the industry over the past 18 months, and one…
Alaska Airlines has named full-service communications shop Translation its marketing partner in charge of leading and leveraging the airline’s long-term partnership with NBA superstar Kevin Durant. Translation will work alongside Alaska Airline’s lead creative agency, Mekanism. “We selected Translation because of their expertise working with world-class athletes like Kevin Durant,” said Natalie Bowman, managing director…
The Hyatt hotel chain has parted with its creative agency of record MullenLowe and launched a global review for all 12 of its brands around the world, sources confirmed to Adweek. This news follows last month’s announcement that Hyatt would eliminate the global chief marketing officer role as part of an effort to “accelerate growth”…
Beats Electronics, the brand formerly known as Beats by Dre that was acquired by Apple in 2014 for $3 billion, is making more big changes to its ever-fluid global ad agency roster. According to multiple parties familiar with the business who spoke to Adweek on background, the audio company will be taking more of its…
Global Road Entertainment, the recently launched independent theatrical and TV studio (formed by Tang Media Partners), has chosen MullenLowe Mediahub as its media agency of record. The shop will handle media planning and buying for the studio’s feature film slate, which includes teen drama Midnight Sun (to be released March 23), CGI family comedy Show…
Dish Network has launched a creative review, a source with direct knowledge of the matter confirmed to Adweek. The source added that the review is being handled by New York search consultancy Avidan Strategies, is still in its early stages and includes “a long list” of unspecified agencies. It is unclear if incumbent Camp +…
Online mortgage lending giant Quicken Loans has launched a review of its media buying and planning account. “After nearly two decades, Quicken Loans has decided to open the RFP process for a new media planning and buying agency,” a Quicken Loans representative said in a statement provided to Adweek. “Our in-house marketing agency and our…
State Farm is in the process of consolidating the majority of its marketing business with Omnicom, according to several parties with direct knowledge of the matter. “State Farm works with many vendors to provide solutions to meet our customers’ needs,” said a company spokesperson regarding its agency roster. “Those relationships continue to evolve and are…
After years of working in various roles in the advertising industry, Sarah Hooper and Matthew Goldman noticed a glaring issue with the traditional agency model. As it goes, senior executives win pitches, assure clients they’ll see their projects through, and then dump the work on junior staff. “It just seemed like a farce to me,”…
While it’s true HBO is not an ad-supported network, Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver made an exception Sunday, uttering the words rarely heard on the premium cable network: “We’ll be right back.”
Of course what followed wasn’t a real commercial, but instead a GM ad parody created to punctuate Oliver’s hilarious (and disturbing) dissection of internal practices at GM, where a long list of defects in cars over the past decade led to an even longer list of no-go words and phrases compiled in a memo, which blacklisted phrases like “deathtrap,” “defective,” “catastrophically flawed,” “Hindenburg”—you get the idea.
Obviously the point of the memo was to make sure none of those words ended up associated with the cars once they got to the market—a sensible notion, from a branding perspective, but probably not a directive that was terribly wise to put on paper. So after a lengthy segment eviscerating GM (remember, this is the guy who stretched potshots at quetionably healthy drink Pom Wonderful over two episodes), Oliver cut away to a fake GM ad containing almost all those words the car company didn’t want associated with its brand.
Just to tie a bow on the whole takedown, HBO is even running Oliver’s GM bit as a lengthy pre-roll ad on YouTube this week. From a comedy perspective, the segment is gold. From a marketing perspective, it’s like watching a Hellraiser movie.
While it's true HBO is not an ad-supported network, Last Week Tonight's John Oliver made an exception Sunday, uttering the words rarely heard on the premium cable network: "We'll be right back."
Of course what followed wasn't a real commercial, but instead a GM ad parody created to punctuate Oliver's hilarious (and disturbing) dissection of internal practices at GM, where a long list of defects in cars over the past decade led to an even longer list of no-go words and phrases compiled in a memo, which blacklisted phrases like "deathtrap," "defective," "catastrophically flawed," "Hindenburg"—you get the idea.
Obviously the point of the memo was to make sure none of those words ended up associated with the cars once they got to the market—a sensible notion, from a branding perspective, but probably not a directive that was terribly wise to put on paper. So after a lengthy segment eviscerating GM (remember, this is the guy who stretched potshots at quetionably healthy drink Pom Wonderful over two episodes), Oliver cut away to a fake GM ad containing almost all those words the car company didn't want associated with its brand.
Just to tie a bow on the whole takedown, HBO is even running Oliver's GM bit as a lengthy pre-roll ad on YouTube this week. From a comedy perspective, the segment is gold. From a marketing perspective, it's like watching a Hellraiser movie.
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