Hasta La Creative!

This afternoon Adweek broke the news that Nissan has chosen to move lead global creative duties on its Infiniti brand from CP+B to 72andSunny.

The details of the shift remain somewhat unclear, but according to two reliable sources, it has already happened. Only the legal details remain to be ironed out.

Infiniti PR simply said, “We continue to work with CP+B as well as other partners,” declining to comment directly on the 72andSunny decision. Spokespeople for that agency, CP+B, and MDC Partners all referred us back to the client.

The way we hear it, 72 snapped up international duties behind CP+B’s backs while a team from Boulder swept in to retain the U.S. AOR portion of the account. It is unclear at the moment exactly why the change was made and whether the two will work together moving forward. OMD remains media agency of record for Infiniti.

Regardless, the move is bad news for the Crispin organization. When they finally won the review way back in late 2014, some called Infiniti the agency’s biggest client. After the win, they opened a Shanghai office, hired new creative, strategy and account leads across locations and moved the center of operations on the global business to Los Angeles.

Nissan spent more than $171 million on marketing for Infiniti last year, and 2014 estimates had the brand spending around $450 million globally.

In our very humble opinions, CP+B’s best work to date for this client was the spot in which a nervous son comes out to his BMW-driving, Westchester-living, sweater-wearing dad. Unfortunately, it’s no longer on YouTube.

Fast food chain Church’s Chicken has named JWT Atlanta as its agency of record, effective as of August 1.

The appointment concludes an extensive review which lasted four months and involved researching agencies of all sizes across the country, pitted JWT against another large agency in its final stages, Hector Munoz who joined Church’s Chicken from Popeyes as executive vice president and chief marketing officer in March, told AgencySpy.

“We weren’t looking just for a creative agency,” Munoz explained, “we were looking for that partner that will help us identify that key insight that will make this brand great again.”

He added that JWT Atlanta “showed tremendous passion for our business, our franchisees, our customers, high level strategic muscle, and made us feel comfortable with what they could bring to the table.”

The agency will be tasked with all brand marketing efforts, including broadcast and radio advertising, which will be led by chief creative officer Vann Graves, who was appointed to that role last December.

JWT Atlanta will partner with Munoz, Church Chicken senior director of advertising Georgia Margeson and the rest of the chain’s marketing team on a brand repositioning effort. The agency’s first campaign for the brand is expected in early 2018.

Munoz credited Graves and JWT Atlanta CEO Spence Kramer, along with the agency’s head of strategy, as “two main reasons” the brand selected the agency.

“We’re excited about the people, the caliber of their thinking, their creativity and all the resources that JWT Altanta and their parent company can bring to the table,” Munoz said. “Spence has done amazing things putting together a strong team of dedicated passionate people. One of the first things we noticed was that there’s a lot of passion in that room. They hit an emotional connection with Church’s Chicken about our brand.

Church’s Chicken formerly worked with Boulder, Colorado’s Made Movement as agency of record, a relationship which ended in late 2016. Since then the brand has been working with Erich & Kallman on a project basis and will be using the San Francisco-based agency’s work through the end of the year.

Great spot. Great homage. Great production. And gee whiz, did I get a — wait for it — product benefit in there? I think I did. Thanks to Mumaw for pointing it out.

Organic and natural foods company Hain Celestial Group selected independent New York agency Burns Group as agency of record for its Terra Chips and Earth’s Best Organic Infant Toddler Foods brands, following a review.

The Burns Group will be responsible for creating a cross-platform campaign for both brands, including digital and social initiatives.

“Burns Group is the ideal mix of smart strategic thinking and creative ingenuity,” Hain Celestial Group director of marketing Brett Hartmann said in a statement. “Their vision for transforming our brands in the consumer conversation is completely consistent with our aspirations.”

“Hain has assembled a marketing team of ambitious, highly skilled professionals with big dreams for their brands,” added Burns Group founding partner Michael Burns. “We’re thrilled to be on the team helping them to realize those ambitions. Their portfolio of brands is right on trend and there is so much potential for growth.”

The assignment follows Burns Group winning lead creative duties on Pfizer’s Centrum brand last December. Burns Group’s other clients include Chap Stick, Ricola, Columbia Business School, Yellow Tail and Disaronno.

AB InBev has more confidence in Wieden+Kennedy than it did in Seth Rogen and Amy Schumer.

The multinational beverage giant expanded its relationship with the W+K network by choosing its Delhi office as strategic and creative AOR for the Budweiser and Haywards 5000 brands across the Indian subcontinent.

“The Indian market is growing rapidly amongst other Budweiser global markets, and Wieden’s drive, energy and expertise completely matches ours at this point,” said marketing director Kartikeya Sharma. “Combined with their creative excellence, we can only look forward to putting out some great work for both Budweiser and Haywards 5000, and further expanding our footprint in the country.”

W+K Delhi managing director Sidharth Loyal added, “It’s an exciting opportunity to get to work on two iconic beer brands that have helped define and shape culture in their own unique ways. We look forward to further strengthening their legacy within the ever-so-thirsty Indian market.” Thirsty!

On that point, India is indeed a rare bright spot on the global sales map for AB InBev, which saw sales decrease in the U.S., Brazil and China last year as it failed to meet revenue estimates for the first three quarters of 2016. According to a January piece in Bloomberg, Indian consumers have been drinking more thanks in large part to an expanding middle class that skews young.

As in the U.S., the craft beer industry is also booming in India. But for now Budweiser and Haywards 5000 remain two of the top five brands in that market. The latter was acquired as part of 2015’s SABMiller merger, and here’s an example of an ad for that brand that recently ran in India.

Anomaly still handles Budweiser in the U.S. while W+K has Bud Light.

Back in May, Brinker International casual dining chain Chili’s Bar and Grill put its advertising account in review, following a decade with Hill Holliday. Parties with direct knowledge of the matter told Adweek the chain would not seek another agency of record but instead work with agencies on a project basis.

Chili’s has now concluded its review, awarding an advertising project to O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul.

“Chili’s is the leader in the enduring bar and grill category whose ‘sea of sameness’ menu and advertising models are increasingly broken,” Chili’s executive vice president, chief marketing and innovation officer Steve Provost, who took that role in March after seven years with Brinker sister brand Maggiano’s Little Italy, explained in a statement. “We need to reinvest and differentiate our food and then find creative communication to convince Chili’s lovers and former Chili’s lovers to reconsider us, in a world where guests are deluged every day with promises of ‘better and ‘new.’”

“After a quick, but intensive search process, we found an agency, OKRP, that is reinventing the enduring model in their business and we felt that they are the right partner in this challenge,” he continued. “OKRP knows the rules of food advertising in order to break the rules of food advertising. They have demonstrated a quick understanding of our business, and how to connect with consumers with humor and humanity. Their scrappy, creative energy is just what we need to move our brand forward today.”

“Chili’s is an iconic brand in a category we know and love,” added OKRP CEO Tom O’Keefe. “We do our best work with brands challenging the business conventions of the day and are very excited to be working with Chili’s in its next chapter of growth.”

The agency’s new campaign for the brand is expected to launch in the early fall and run through the second quarter of 2018. Chili’s spent around $129 million on measured media in domestically last year, according to Kantar Media.

OKRP’s appointment follows an agency chance at another struggling casual dining chain which also plans to launch a new campaign this fall.

In March, DineEquity brand Applebee’s selected Grey as its creative agency of record, concluding a review launched in December. Grey’s first work for the client, a campaign introducing the chain’s new “Topped and Loaded” menu, debuted last week. The agency’s first major brand campaign for Applebee’s is expected this fall.

Mass-market retailer Gap Inc. or The Gap recently launched a review seeking an agency to handle its U.S. digital media planning and buying duties, according to parties close to the business.

We don’t yet know which agencies are involved, but since the review is being led by a consultancy, it’s fair to say that some of the major players are pitching. The review remains in its early stages.

This development is in keeping with Gap’s ongoing attempts to adjust to a rapidly shifting retail market.

Craig Brommers, formerly of Abercrombie & Fitch and Speedo, became the company’s CMO just over a year ago. Well before his arrival, however, Gap became one of the first big-name clients to publicly eschew the agency of record model by moving work away from Ogilvy toward other shops on its roster around the world.

The client eventually split with Ogilvy entirely, bringing on Wieden+Kennedy as its new creative partner in 2014 before again pivoting to project-based work with agencies like Untitled Worldwide at some point last year. Similarly, Gap does not publicize its media agency relationships.

On a conference call last August, president and CEO Art Peck announced that the company planned to expand its marketing budget in an effort to counter sales trends that have lagged behind sister company Old Navy.

On that note, Gap remains a major account. According to the latest numbers from Kantar Media, the chain spent $178 million on paid media in the U.S. last year and $42 million during the first quarter of 2017. It’s not clear what percentage of that spend is digital.

The company’s most recent OOO promotions have garnered some media attention including a mention from uptown girl Christie Brinkley, who praised Gap for featuring a 63-year old woman in its ads. (That woman is herself.)

Gap’s media relations department has not responded to requests for comment on the review.

As our readers have predicted for weeks, MillerCoors officially consolidated creative duties on its Miller brands within the DDB network today. Moving forward, DDB Chicago will be global AOR for Miller Lite and Adam&EveDDB will handle Miller Genuine Draft. The decision follows a formal creative review involving several other competitors.

This means the beverage giant has split with 180LA after just over one year; it will also no longer officially work with TBWA sister shop Juniper Park.

Here’s the internal memo from CMO Dave Kroll, who recently returned from medical leave.

Achieving our growth imperative and ensuring that MillerCoors becomes First Choice for Customers and Consumers requires strong performance from our American Light Lagers. We’ve made great progress over the past couple of years, but still have work to do.

Miller Lite recently celebrated its 10th straight quarter of share growth. In order to accelerate our momentum, it’s imperative that we have the strongest team possible on board. Starting this week, we are consolidating the Miller Lite creative responsibilities at DDB Chicago. This transition will be seamless as we are keeping the business within the Omnicom family. We are moving some of the best creative talent from our previous agencies 180LA and Juniper Park, into a new team at DDB in order to have a best-in-class creative and planning team. DDB has made great strides on the digital side of the Miller Lite business over the last month, and we feel confident that this expanded team will keep the brand on its positive trajectory.

In addition to consolidating the U.S. Miller Lite creative business, we will also be strengthening our relationship with DDB by moving global creative for Miller Genuine Draft to DDB’s London-based agency Adam & Eve.

In an increasingly competitive industry, it’s crucial that we reward agency partners that share our commitment and vision for the future. We have the right brand purpose, the right brand world and the right creative to bring it all together. Now we have the right team in place to capitalize on the opportunity in front of us.

Thanks,
DK

Spokespeople for DDB deferred to the client, who didn’t go beyond the memo above. 180LA has not yet provided a statement.

According to one reliable source, the Miller Lite review saw DDB Chicago beat out the L.A. offices of 180, BBH and CP+B for the business. It’s currently unclear which agencies, if any, competed against Adam&EveDDB for the other account.

Just over two months ago, MillerCoors moved digital creative duties on the Miller Lite brand from DigitasLBi Chicago to DDB, apparently without a review. Since then, MillerCoors reps have declined on more than one occasion to confirm that they would be consolidating the account with DDB.

The parent company spent $130 million promoting Miller Lite in the U.S. last year and $27 million in Q1 2017.

TBWAChiatDay Los Angeles is in the market for a new car, and it might just be a Mitsubishi.

Earlier this year, Nissan surprised quite a few in the agency world by splitting with the Omnicom shop’s West Coast network after more than 30 years. Just over three months later, Mitsubishi—in which the company acquired a 34% stake in late 2016—also dropped 180LA as its creative agency of record.

Now we hear that TBWA hopes to make up for that loss by picking up the smaller account. According to Kantar Media, Mitsubishi spent $95 million on U.S. marketing last year.

The Nissan work didn’t leave Omnicom, it simply moved from TBWA L.A. to Zimmerman (broadcast) and the former agency’s New York team (social and digital). And since Nissan now owns part of Mitsubishi, its leadership is very familiar with the Omnicom roster. Like Pepsi, it seems that they’d prefer to keep things within the family.

On that point, one source very close to the matter tells us that TBWA’s West Coast executives recently had a meeting or meetings with Francine Harsini, senior director of marketing at Mitsubishi North America. This would not be the first time Harsini has come into contact with TBWA: she formerly served as managing supervisor there before moving in-house with DirecTV and eventually going to the Japan-based car company.

It’s not yet clear whether the two parties will work together. According to our source, Mitsubishi is notoriously hard on its agencies, and several people who worked on the account in the past told us that the client had been sending project work to independent L.A. shop Omelet and using that organization’s lower rates as leverage against 180LA.

Another party tells us that the meetings were part of a formal review involving TBWA, Omelet and other unnamed agencies.

A TBWA spokesperson deferred to the client, whose PR department has not responded to any of our calls or emails about the recent changes in its agency lineup. Omelet also declined to comment on the earlier story about its relationship with Mitsubishi.

More news to come on this account.

PespiCo has launched a closed creative review for its Pepsi brand in the U.S., open only to Omnicom agencies.

“Omnicom has been our longstanding partner because we value the diverse array of agencies and talent they have under one roof,” a Pepsi spokesperson said in a statement. “We continually evaluate the best ways to market our brands, and in the U.S. on brand Pepsi, we are once again looking within Omnicom for custom creative solutions.”

We reached out to Omnicom shops Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, DDB, TBWAChiatDay and BBDO. The latter agency deferred to the client, while the other three agencies have yet to reply.

Omnicom has primarily handled work on the Pepsi brand in the past. In recent years, however, the brand has not restricted itself to Omnicom agencies and has worked with agencies outside the network, including Mekanism. In 2008, PepsiCo shifted lead creative duties from BBDO to TBWAChiatDay for the brand after over 50 year with the former shop. BBDO started working with the brand again in 2015.

Greg Lyons was promoted to chief marketing officer for PepsiCo’s North America Beverage Division at the beginning of the year.