Hasta La Creative!

Mazda North American Operations (MNAO) appointed Dino Bernacchi to the newly-created position of chief marketing officer for U.S. operations, effective May 1.

In the role, Bernacchi will be based out of the company’s Irvine, California headquarters and report to MNAO president, CEO and global CMO Masahiro Moro. Bernacchi will be responsible for overseeing Mazda’s brand communications in the U.S., “examining every touch point that affects a customer’s interaction with Mazda, from the earliest discovery phase of new-car shopping, through the research and purchase, to ownership and ultimately through to repurchase, and developing an overarching strategy to deliver clear, precise, consistent messages that support the Mazda Premium brand vision,” according to a press release.

Vice president, marketing Russell Wager will continue overseeing external communications and report to Bernacchi.

“The need to hone our company’s focus as a provider of exceptional customer experiences at every touchpoint with our brand, through our communications, with our vehicles and handled by our network of Mazda dealerships, has never been more clear,” Moro said in a statement.

“As customer tastes and expectations change, and Mazda moves itself to a new, more premium, position in the industry, it is critical that Mazda be laser-focused in our approach to how we tell our proud brand story at every touchpoint in the customer’s journey with us,” he added. “Dino’s leadership experience in doing exactly that in the past is why he is perfectly suited for this role at Mazda.”

Bernacchi arrives at Mazda with over 23 years of marketing communications experience, most recently serving as director of U.S. marketing for Harley-Davidson Motor Company. His previous experience includes stints at General Motors and Campbell Ewald, where he helped manage the Chevy business.

WPP’s Garage Team Mazda has handled U.S. advertising duties for the brand since 2010. The agency recently welcomed Erich Funke as chief creative officer, following the departure of former CCO Harvey Marco, who led the unit since its 2010 inception, last fall.

FCB New York recently won a review to continue its relationship with The Food and Drug Administration Center for Tobacco Products.

This decision means another 5-year contract worth $625 million. The official winner was True North Communications, an IPG unit consisting of FCB, Initiative, Rescue and Society. All were incumbents on the business, though we don’t know which other agencies were involved in the review (which began with a December RFP).

Someone who may or may not be an IPG employee apparently leaked the news, which first appeared in PR Week last Friday.

“We’re honored and thrilled to be continuing—and deepening—our relationship with FDA,” said FCB New York CEO Karyn Rockwell in a statement. “Tobacco use is the leading, yet preventable, cause of death in the U.S., and we know that awareness and education play a key role in helping people to make the right decisions that will positively change and impact their behaviors.”

Since originally winning the business in 2012, FCB’s most notable work has been the “Real Cost” campaign, which the FDA’s own research claims has prevented some 350,000 11-18-year-old Americans from smoking. You may remember last month’s “Little Lungs” PSA.

As before, the agencies involved will work on an integrated campaign combining research, creative, social, media strategy, partnerships, etc. in efforts to reach the general market of young people in addition to targeted groups like multicultural teens, LGBT and “rural at-risk youth.”

“The FDA is investing in a number of public education campaigns, such as The Real Cost, Fresh Empire, and This Free Life to help educate the public—especially youth—about the dangers of tobacco products,” a client spokesperson told PRWeek.

I used to go fishing on fishing trips to Minnesota with my grandfather. It was a big deal to go away for a week, stay in the camper, and catch a mess of Walleye. I’ll also never forget looking deep down into the clean, clear blue lakes of the region. Given my upbringing and current […]

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The popular sporting news property Bleacher Report recently named Johannes Leonardo as its creative agency partner after a review.

The site launched nearly 10 years ago in San Francisco, and it has survived as many rivals in the crowded and intensely competitive world of sports journalism failed. (RIP, Grantland.)

One source tells us that the review also involved the New York offices of Anomaly, Mother and Droga5, with the latter going up against JL in the final round.

Reps for those two agencies declined to comment. Bleacher Report’s head of PR confirmed that the company is working with Johannes Leonardo but did not elaborate on the nature of the relationship.

We currently have no official information about the work or the size of the account. Most non-legacy media companies are not large media spenders; Bleacher Report, however, was acquired by Turner Broadcasting System for $170 million just under 5 years ago and later developed the “industry-leading 5 star rated Team Stream app.” Its advertiser page claims 60+ million “unique visitors”, calling itself “the 2nd largest digital sports site on the planet” behind ESPN.

The property began as “a citizen journalism site for sports” and announced its Series A funding round and “public launch” in February 2008. Since then, it has abandoned the user-driven content model, hired several veteran journalists and evolved into more of a traditional multimedia source for sports news, footage and hot takes. In 2011, Adweek readers voted it their favorite sports media brand.

B/R celebrates one decade in business later this spring.

The New York office of MullenLowe recently won a review to become global creative agency of record for Mount Gay Rum. Moving forward, it will be handling all campaigns to promote the Barbados-based, Rémy Cointreau-owned liquor brand.

In recent years, Ogilvy and New York’s Our Man in Havana have produced work for the brand, which can legitimately claim to be the world’s oldest active rum facility (but not one of the 10 biggest selling brands, according to various listicles).

The account is somewhat minor. According to Kantar Media, Remy spent less than $200,000 on measured media promoting Mount Gay in the U.S. in 2015.

But the parent company wants to expand its rum’s share of the market compared to big . In 2013, production company Radical Media discussed rebranding Mount Gay at The One Show’s Creative Week, noting that they aimed to “position the brand in a more premium space.”

Reps for MullenLowe and Rémy Cointreau declined to comment on the relationship.

According to the party who first shared the win with us, it symbolizes MullenLowe New York’s newfound ability to “compete and win against all the big boys” thanks to its new management.

We’ve yet to find a party who will confirm that—but we are pretty sure the phrase “big digital transformation assignment from a high end retail/e-comm player” refers to MullenLowe beating out several hot shops to win E*Trade earlier this month.

[Pic via]

Heineken USA selected Omnicom’s Red Urban as its lead digital and social marketing agency. The client formerly worked with a roster of agencies on digital and social media marketing assignments including creative AOR Publicis, Havas, 360i, We Are Social and Nomades.

Red Urban, which currently has offices in Toronto and Amsterdam, will open a new location in New York to service the client, whose brands include Heineken, Heineken Light, Tecate, Amstel, Dos Equis and Strongbow hard cider. According to a release, the office is a “bespoke solution which will also draw upon a number of agencies and partners.”

“We could not be more thrilled to partner with Heineken here in the U.S. and create something new, bespoke and innovative for them,” Red Urban group business director Emilio Rosas said in a statement. “The landscape is changing rapidly and we believe this fixed and flexible model allows us to respond at the speed of the marketplace with the right talent at the right time!”

“With Red Urban at the helm, and the ability to leverage Omnicom digital and social capabilities, we look forward to taking Heineken’s consumer centric strategy to the next level,” Omnicom Digital CEO Jonathan Nelson added.

Heineken USA chief marketing officer Nuno Teles cited Red Urban’s “fantastic track record for developing winning programming” in the selection, adding, “we look forward to partnering together across our portfolio of premium import beers and ciders.”

McDonald’s chief marketing officer Deborah Wahl (pictured) is leaving the company, replaced in her role by Morgan Flatley.

As you may recall, McDonald’s launched a creative review almost a year ago, which included unusual financial demands that led WPP to drop out of the review last May. That review concluded in late August with the selection of DDB, leading holding company Omnicom to create its dedicated We Are Unlimited unit. We Are Unlimited released its first work for the client, “There’s a Big Mac for That,” back in January.

Flatley joins McDonald’s from PepsiCo, where she has spent the past three years as CMO for Pepsi’s Gatorade and Propel brands. She originally arrived at Pepsi as assistant marketing manager on Brand Pepsi in September of 2004, following three years in account management with Saatchi & Saatchi.

Wahl has served as McDonald’s CMO since March of 2014, following four and a half years as CMO for PulteGroup and nearly a year and a half in the role for Chrysler. She has also served in marketing leadership roles for Toyota and Ford.

Wahl’s exit is part of a larger marketing leadership transition that also includes Linda VanGosen replacing Lance Richards as vice president, menu strategy and Farhan Siddiqi replacing Julia Vander Ploeg as vice president, digital for the U.S.

Party City selected Boston-based Hill Holliday as its lead creative, digital and media agency, following a review launched in February which saw longtime incumbent Zimmerman Advertising defend the account. At least one source tells us Barkley also pitched.

We reached out to Zimmerman for comment but have yet to receive a response, which may be because the Ft. Lauderdale agency has also handled PR for Party City.

“While we are sorry to part ways with Party City, we understand that new management often triggers new agencies,” Zimmerman CEO Michael Goldberg said in a statement published by AdAge.”That said, we will always root for them and take pride knowing we helped them double their revenue, more than doubled their profits, increased unaided awareness from 26% to 86% and drove positive comp sales every year of our relationship — something unheard of in today’s retail marketplace.”

Zimmerman’s most well-known work for the brand was this 2009 Halloween spot set to Michael Jackson‘s “Thriller.”

Zimmerman recently picked up creative lead duties on Nissan as the client restructured its relationship with Omnicom in North America. Hill Holliday, meanwhile, parted ways with John Hancock after over 30 years last month.

According to Kantar Media, Party City spent around $50 million in 2015 and $27 million from January to September of 2016.

R/GA has moved further into “traditional” agency turf by way of multinational tech conglomerate Samsung.

Multiple parties have confirmed that R/GA significantly expanded its global remit for the Korea-based company starting in late 2016. Earlier this week, the client’s North American CMO Marc Mathieu confirmed to Adweek that R/GA would be working on its “most ambitious marketing campaign yet” to promote the new Galaxy S8 phone along with W+K and design agency Turner Duckworth. (And then there was the Leo Burnett spot promoting Gear VR. Lots of moving parts here.)

The R/GA ads in question are not “live” yet, but they’re broadcast. And they play on nature themes.

Back in January, we posted on the client moving its global social media business to Bob Greenberg’s agency and away from Big Spaceship, which closed its Seoul office in December after losing AOR status. R/GA has been working with Samsung since it won a digital AOR review in 2013; the business had previously been with Razorfish for less than a year.

According to our sources, R/GA added broadcast TV to its expanding list of Samsung responsibilities for the first time beyond the digital and social media work. Beyond the Galaxy S8, R/GA will also be creating future campaigns to promote the client’s kitchen appliances division.

These wins happened around the same time as the social media transition, but it’s not clear whether there was a formal review because no one has spoken to us on the record.

An R/GA spokesperson deferred to the client for comment. Samsung PR has not responded in any way, shape or form to multiple emails and phone calls made over the past several weeks.

This is somewhat understandable given that the company has larger things on its mind including the launch of the new phone and the arrest of vice chairman and de facto CEO Jay Y. Lee, who is accused of colluding with now-former Korean president Park Geun-hye in a bribery scandal that led to her impeachment and removal from office. Yesterday, officials placed her under arrest on corruption charges.

Samsung also hopes that the Galaxy S8 will help eliminate all memory of the exploding phones that ultimately led to $3 billion or more in losses last year by the company’s own estimate.

Expect to see a lot more R/GA Samsung work to come.

Someone sent Carls Jr.’s sexist adverting back to the kitchen. No more tits and ass. Now, it’s about the meat, the menu, and the brand’s history of innovation. In case you’re not sure what you’re missing here, let’s revisit the recent past in Carl’s Jr. land. Team Tex, meet Team Mex. On 9.25.15, it’s game […]

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