Hasta La Creative!

Droga5’s newest client is The Paper of Record: our own hometown New York Times.

NYT reps told us today that they would not be able to help us in our search for more information regarding the relationship between the two, and Droga5 declined to comment.

But we can confirm, via multiple sources, that the agency has been working with The Grey Lady’s marketing department on a project basis. The nature of the work is not clear, but we hear that it ties into the paper’s larger strategic goals.

That almost certainly translates into increasing the NYT’s subscriber base and appealing to younger, more diverse audiences while maintaining its position as the dominant news brand in an increasingly splintered digital media ecosystem.

Last October, the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post surpassed the New York Times in overall web traffic for the first time; as the latter org’s Lydia Polgreen put in a tweet at the time, “Meet America’s new paper of record.” The same month, the Times’ editorial staff sent out a 12-page internal memo titled “Our Path Forward” and announced a very ambitious plan: doubling digital revenues over the next five years.

The Times’ digital subscriptions have been growing as print advertising dollars dwindle, but it may struggle to reach the aforementioned revenue goal. A September Digiday report noted the NYT’s plans to localize its editorial and marketing efforts and the challenges it faces in both expanding its global audience and attracting international advertisers that have traditionally worked with local publications.

Droga5’s first work for The New York Times should debut at some point in the coming months.

We would also note that this development has nothing to do with a May Style piece that cast Droga5 employees as a self-contained fashion show in what should forever serve as a case study in PR mastery.

Absolut Vodka appointed BBH London as lead global creative agency, following a review, The Drum reports. Sid Lee formerly held creative duties on the account and is believed not to have participated in the review.

“We are thrilled to have the creative and strategic talents of BBH join the Absolut family as we bring to life the next evolution of the #AbsolutNights campaign,” Absolut vice president, marketing Craig Johnson told the publication. “We are confident that the approach BBH demonstrated through the pitch process will extend our legacy of bold marketing that made Absolut one of the world’s most known and loved brands.”

BBH London’s first effort will be an iteration of the #AbsolutNights campaign launched in 2014 across all markets. Sid Lee’s Amsterdam and New York offices teamed up last May for an #AbsolutNights effort centered around a 30-second broadcast spot documenting related events in cities including New York, Berlin, Sao Paolo and Johannesburg.

BBH London managing director Adam Arnold told The Drum that the agency was “deeply proud” to be working with the client, adding, “Our ambition is to live up to its rich advertising heritage and at the same time make the brand meaningful to a whole new generation of drinkers. Creative opportunities do not come bigger or better than Absolut.”

The news follows Uber choosing BBH London as its first official agency in the U.K. back in March and the departure of  deputy executive creative director, managing partner Caroline Pay, and subsequent promotions of Ian Heartfield and Black Sheep Studios CEO Anthony Austin to deputy executive creative director roles in July.

Denver-based fast casual chain Chipotle is launching a creative review, seeking an agency partner to shape future marketing efforts on a project basis.

“We are working with Pile & Company as we explore the possibility of a new agency to help us with some marketing programs we are planning for 2017,” Chipotle communications director Chris Arnold told Adweek. “We are always evaluating our roster of agency partners based on current and anticipated needs.”

Chipotle has worked with Austin-based GSD&M since 2014, and that shop is among those being considered for future projects. The client signed also VICE-owned Carrot Creative at its social media AOR last year, with CAA making its best-known animated spots.

Chipotle has mostly avoided the traditional advertising model, eschewing broadcast spots altogether with the lone exception of an effort which aired during the 2012 Grammy Awards. It has instead run big budget digital ads, such as 2013 spot “The Scarecrow” and the recent “A Love Story,” an original comedy series entitled “Farmed and Dangerous” and attention-grabbing in-store efforts like the 2014 “Cultivating Thought” series of stories from famous authors on its cups and other packaging. With a new agency partner, broadcast advertising could be in the brand’s future, although Arnold declined to elaborate on specific plans.

The chain is, of course, still recovering from an E.coli scare last year, and repairing its reputation will undoubtedly be part of any new agency’s job description. GSD&M recently teamed up with animation studio HouseSpecial on a digital spot emphasizing Chipotle’s commitment to quality ingredients, a longstanding selling-point for the brand.

Costa Mesa-based fast food chain El Pollo Loco is looking for a new creative agency of record.

The account has been with Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners since 2012, when El Pollo switched shops after less than a year with Goodness Mfg. (The preceding review allegedly involved some 35 agencies.)

Representatives for El Pollo Loco have not responded to our email query regarding the current review, but sources confirmed the news this afternoon. It’s not clear at this time which agencies are pitching the business, though we do hear that Secret Weapon did not make the initial cut.

The chain has not been mentioned by advertising trades in recent years, but it has been expanding. In May, it hired former Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf CEO John Dawson to fill the newly created role of chief development officer and announced plans to open more than twice as many units in 2016 as it had the previous year.

El Pollo Loco has also made headlines for the pro-transgender hiring practices of one particularly successful franchisee, who runs six locations and says that she has employed transgender individuals for several years.

In 2012, Nielsen reported that the chain had spent $27 million on media the previous year.

If we had learned two things at this year’s Advertising Week, they would have been that Facebook is a media company that would rather not be known as such and that ad agencies are under a good bit of pressure to diversify.

Today the New York Times revealed that Verizon has joined HP and General Mills in calling on all of its agencies to hurry up. Earlier this month, Verizon’s EVP/CMO Diego Scotti sent a related letter to 11 of the shops on its roster. From that letter:

“At Verizon, we have the assets to change the world. … our purpose-driven culture gives everyone at Verizon a seat at the table to ideate and work together to solve the world’s biggest challenges.

That’s why I’m reaching out to you today to ask that your company make an important commitment to drastically improve the percentage of women and people of color in leadership roles and continue to support our diverse supplier community by awarding more subcontracting work to diverse businesses.”

He goes on to drop some key data points:

“At Verizon, we take great pride in having a workforce that’s 59% diverse (people of color and women). Worldwide women make up 35.7% of the workforce and in the U.S. people of color represent 40%.

Verizon spent more than $25 billion dollars with diverse businesses and $4.25 billion in 2015 alone. Moreover, Verizon’s board of directors is one of the most diverse boards in the country comprised of 4 women and 5 people of color — from a total of 13 board members.”

Unlike General Mills, Scotti does not list any specific numbers that these agencies must reach. But he does demand a response:

“… my expectation is that in the next 30 days you will share your current state of workforce broken out by number of women (by ethnicity) and people of color in your different levels, including senior leadership. Moreover, please provide your action plans that describe how you are growing workforce and supplier diversity.”

We think it fair to note that, while self-described “leading source of information on diversity management” Diversity Inc. lists General Mills as number 40 on its list of the 50 most diverse companies, Verizon does not appear on the list. Neither does HP.

Here’s a link to Verizon’s leadership team and here is a link to its Board of Directors, which does indeed include several women and people of color.

General Mills chief creative officer Michael Fanuele, who formerly worked in planning and strategy for Fallon, JWT and Havas, also had some words to share at this week’s events.

Of his own company’s call for diversity, he said, “It wasn’t some sort of moral high-horse stance about the failing ad industry.” Regarding agency efforts on that front, he continued:

“Some show up with all the right people around the table and it almost does feel like a quota of tokenism; it’s like ‘Oh, thank you. You found the, you know, Southeast Asian transgender woman who works somewhere in your network to come to our meeting to talk.’ And then other times it just looks beautiful and diverse and it’s very genuine and real…”

Sounds about right.

Back in March of 2015, Chobani dropped Droga5 as its agency of record, stating at the time that it planned to focus on “more in-house and project-based agency partners.” While the brand won’t be returning to the agency of record model, it has selected a lead creative agency in Weiden+Kennedy Portland. The appointment follows the arrival of Leland Maschmeyer as Chobani’s first chief creative officer in July.

Additionally, Chobani hired longtime consultant Lisa Gralnek as vice president of emerging platforms and Kwame Taylor-Hayford as managing director and head of creative technology and integrated production. She will report to chief marketing and brand officer Peter McGuinness while he will work under Maschmeyer.

Taylor-Hayford has worked in the accounts and production departments of several agencies; he was most recently partner and director of integrated production at Sid Lee in New York.

“This is an exciting time of high growth for us,” McGuinness said in a statement. “We’re proud to be evolving our internal team and our tech and creative capabilities, and proud to be partnering with the best agencies in the world to help tell our story.”

“It’s a dream come true when you find a client who is known for making bold moves, shares your independent spirit and values, and most importantly, believes in the power of creativity. Chobani is all that and more,” added W+K Portland managing director Tom Blessington. 

This is only the most recent in a series of changes for Chobani, which named Horizon Media as its new media agency of record in August and hired Galvea Kelly of L’Oreal as senior director of digital/content/social strategy and Danielle Cherry, formerly with Starcom, as senior director of media investment and connections planning.

W+K Portland’s first ads for Chobani are expected to debut in Q1 of 2017. Chobani spent $30 million on measured media last year and $20 million in the first half of 2016, according to Kantar Media. With sales growth up 20 percent year over year and the company’s plans for expansion with its Chobani Meze Dips and Drink Chobani lines, that number could continue to rise. 

San Diego-based telecommunications giant Qualcomm is in the midst of a creative agency review with incumbent DDB San Francisco defending. Kantar Media’s latest numbers tell us that Qualcomm spent approximately $10 million on measured media in 2015.

The company first hired the Omnicom shop in 2013 to “develop corporate image advertising.” DDB won a pitch that included Ogilvy & Mather for an account that was worth an estimated $2 million at the time. That review followed the appointment of CMO Anand Chandrasekher, who previously held several senior-level roles at Intel. He was “censured” several months later and effectively demoted after he referred to competitor Apple’s 64-bit A7 chip as “a gimmick,” prompting his employer to issue a correction; Qualcomm has yet to name a new CMO.

Both Qualcomm and DDB declined to comment directly on the current review. A DDB spokesperson deferred to the client, and a representative wrote, “we don’t comment on our internal relationships with our agencies.”

Multiple sources, however, have confirmed that the review is active and that DDB opted to defend. According to the same sources, the move was not unexpected as DDB’s original contract with Qualcomm ends this year.

The agency has created a variety of work for the client, launching its first brand campaign last April under the “Why Wait” theme. The campaign emphasized the speed of Qualcomm’s wireless technologies, with its VP of marketing and branding telling Adweek, “We have tremendous capabilities, but we’ve never talked about them.” Since then, DDB continued to develop the “why wait” in an additional spot released this January and, more recently, a documentary series called “Invent Off” in collaboration with director Andrew Fried of the Netflix food fetish series “Chef’s Table.”

We do not currently know which agencies are involved in the review beyond DDB San Francisco, which went through a round of downsizing this summer after founding client Clorox’s decision to send its creative business to FCB and mcgarrybowen.

MillerCoors named Philadelphia-based agency Quaker City Mercantile (formerly known as Gyro Worldwide) as lead creative and digital strategy agency for its Miller High Life brand. The creative account had formerly been with Leo Burnett, whose shopper marketing agency Arc will continue to work with the brand, with DigitasLBi handling digital work.

MillerCoors also tapped roster agency Mekanism to handle its Keystone Light brand. Both changes were made months ago, but just confirmed to AdAge by brand representatives yesterday. We reached out to MillerCoors as well but have yet to receive a response. 

Other alcohol brands on Quaker City Mercantile’s roster include Hendrick’s Gin, Milagro Tequila and Rhode Island’s Narragansett Brewing Company.

Ashley Selman, MillerCoors vice president, marketing for emerging and economy brands, told AdAge that the brand did not assign AOR status on its economy brands but that Quaker City Mercantile’s assignment could include broadcast advertising, digital and packaging. “We are exploring all of that with them right now,” she said. “We wanted to take a slightly different approach, and we felt like getting to know the Quaker City guys and gals they had a really good finger on the pulse of where we wanted to go with Miller High Life.”

She added that the agency’s work with other alcohol brands was not a concern, stating, “One of the reasons we like them is their understanding of alcohol and consumers. We are not concerned about them working on other alcohols. We have a really clear agreement with them.”

The news follows Leo Burnett losing the McDonald’s account to Omnicom in August following a review launched back in April. Leo Burnett is currently defending in a review for General Motors’ GMC brand, launched earlier this month.

Gloucester, Massachusetts-based frozen seafood brand Gorton’s Seafood recently awarded social, digital, content development, media planning and buying, PR and shopper marketing duties to Connelly Partners, following a review.

In the process the brand ended a nearly decade-long relationship with agency Rinck, which handled social media, digital media, PR and promotions for the brand, as well as working on its website. To show that they were no hard feelings, and to celebrate its long relationship with the brand, Rinck created a music video.

Rinck president and longtime Johnny Cash fan Laura Davis had the idea of creating the video to a performance of “We’ll Meet Again,” the 1939 Vera Lynn song Cash covered on his 2002 album American IV: The Man Comes Around, the final album Cash released during his lifetime. Nearly all of the agency’s 38-strong staff appear in the video, dressed in black and wearing dark sunglasses in a Cash tribute. Director of digital content and strategy Neal Jandreau handles lead vocals and guitar for the song. The video was shot in a 19th century textile mill in Maine by director Ramsey Tripp of Trade-mark R Productions.

“We wanted to honor a relationship and collaboration that we had for nearly a decade, and the friendships that came along with it, with not just the client, but agency partners, vendors and others,” Davis told Adweek.

“I wanted to use the opportunity to set an example on how to end a business relationship well and leave the door wide open. The fact of the matter is that over the last nine years we’ve learned a lot together and I know there will be great things in the future for both of us.”

Newell Brands Inc. appointed global digital agency POSSIBLE to lead its online strategy.

The agency will be tasked with designing a digital experience that creates global consistency while also staying true to individual brands such as Paper Mate, Sharpie and Graco. POSSIBLE has already begun working on the initial phase of the effort, with the creation of initial brand sites.

“We are honoured to work with Newell Brands to help create a world-class experience that connects with consumers,” POSSIBLE president, Americas Jason Burby said in a statement. “We are passionate about delivering digital products that make a measurable difference. Combining high-consideration baby products from a brand like Graco with high-volume brands like Sharpie or PaperMate is a fantastic challenge.”

The appointment follows Newell Brands transferring global creative duties for brands including Rubbermaid, Sharpie, Paper Mate, Calphalon, Irwin and Lenox from BBH to J. Walter Thompson New York without a review back in May. According to Kantar Media, Newell Brands spent around $91.6 million on measured media last year.