Hasta La Creative!

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Just over six months after tasking 180LA with a major rebranding campaign, HP (formerly Hewlett-Packard) has decided to move work away from the Omnicom agency, which parted ways with “a small number” of staffers after news of the decision broke.

The client has worked with roster shops including 180LA and BBDO for several years, with the former producing a variety of projects including a 2014 holiday campaign starring pop star Meghan Trainor. HP recently added Gyro and Paris-based independent agency Fred&Farid as CMO Antonio Lucio, who joined the company from Visa in 2015, moved to better define the printer/personal computer portion of the business after it split from the main company late last year.

180LA, BBDO and Gyro collaborated on last November’s “Keep Reinventing,” which brought back the “Inventing” tagline from 2009.

An HP spokesperson writes:

“We have huge respect and affinity for 180. They have been a tremendous partner.

As part of our own reinvention we are carefully looking at our agency model both for alignment and scale as well as for partners that best map to our long term needs. We are dialing back our work with 180 while we are dialing up our work with other partners.”

180LA had to part ways with some staffers as a result of the change; the news came just as the shop added several new hires to its creative department following the recent Miller Lite win. We do not have specifics regarding the number of employees who were let go, and the agency declined to comment.

We do hear that Fred&Farid, which describes itself as “a social, content, tech solutions for brands company,” has produced a large share of HP’s recent marketing efforts and that it may also inherit most of the work previously handled by 180LA.

BBDO, Fred&Farid and Gyro officially remain on the client’s roster at this time.

Yesterday this blog and other trade pubs reported that GSD&M had won lead creative duties on Dodge after a review. It was an interesting choice given that the Austin shop hasn’t worked on a major auto account in some time after parting with BMW in 2010, but it was big news for the Omnicom network.

In that post, we noted that a review for the larger corporate Chrysler brand has also been ongoing, and today we hear that it has entered its final stages. According to multiple sources, the final three competitors are Droga5, Iris Worldwide New York and Minneapolis agency Mono.

None of these agencies are new to the auto space.

Droga has been working with Toyota since the summer of 2014. Just over a year ago the agency won lead creative duties on the Scion launch and went on to create spots like the one starring a vampire with a man bun.

Mono does not currently work with any car brands, but it won Advance Auto Parts in August 2014 and went on to create such campaigns as “Pothole Dummy,” which launched last month.

Iris Worldwide has long worked with Mini, and its PR division handles lifestyle work for BMW as well. The network (which is partially owned by Cheil) most recently gained attention for creating “Portraits,” one of two FIAT Chrysler Super Bowl ads promoting the Jeep brand. The spot won Adweek’s Super Clio award for best ad of the game, though the client later chose DDB to lead creative for the Jeep brand after that shop made the Big Game spot “4x4ever.”

A Droga5 spokesperson declined to comment for this post and FIAT Chrysler told us that they do not have any new announcements regarding the brand review at this time. Mono and Iris representatives have not yet responded to our emails.

The final decision should come within the next month.

The Hass Avocado Board appointed Grupo Gallegos as its lead digital and social agency in the U.S. following a review handled by Select Resources International which included ten agencies total and two other (undisclosed) finalists, AdAge reports.

Hass Avocado Board director of marketing and communications Gina Widjaja told the publication that Grupo Gallegos’ “creativity, impressive talent, bilingual capabilities and focus on both general market and Hispanic consumers” helped the independent agency secure the appointment. The contract with Grupo Gallegos is initially only for one year, but Widjaja said the Hass Avocado Board hopes to establish a long-lasting relationship with the agency.

Grupo Gallegos, which takes over for BusinessOnline in the role, will be tasked with leading all digital and social media initiatives for Hass Avocado Board, including content development, community management, SEO and SEM and website support.

“Clients ultimately want growth and they need to understand both Hispanic and non-Hispanic consumers, so it’s no longer an either-or,” said Grupo Gallegos CEO John Gallegos. “Our main delivery for clients and why we’re winning business from clients like Hass has to do with our approach, which is to be creativity-driven and culturally attuned.

Today sources told Adweek that Newell Brands has transferred global creative duties for some of its biggest product lines including Rubbermaid, Sharpie, Paper Mate, Calphalon, Irwin and Lenox from BBH to J. Walter Thompson New York … apparently without a review.

The news marks JWT North America’s third new business win since the Gustavo Martinez news broke following Häagen-Dazs (New York) and Splenda (Canada). No one confirmed the Newell win on the record to our colleagues, but if we didn’t know any better we might just say WPP’s PR team is going out of its way to show the world and its clients that JWT has moved on from the still-unresolved Erin Johnson case.

This latest move follows Newell Rubbermaid’s $15 billion acquisition of Jarden Corp. this past December and only impacts legacy brands awarded to BBH in 2013. Other Newell brands, including Mr. Coffee, Sunbeam and Rival, were not affected.

Newell Rubbermaid spent $91.6 million on measured media last year, according to Kantar Media.

So has JWT recovered? So far, the only major loss we can confirm following the Martinez news is Macy’s, which recently dropped the shop in favor of BBH and Figliulo&Partners. And we all now know its solution to the practices that led to the lawsuit is the sort of diversity council that many other agencies have had for years.

JWT staffers including multiple PR executives and the New York office’s head of business development have also left, though statements insist their departures were unrelated to the controversy and that decisions were made before the suit went public.

The question, therefore, remains.

Last week we posted on some changes in the advertising business of Lenovo-owned phone brand Motorola.

In case you missed it, Droga5 resigned the business after 4 years. This decision followed both the 2014 acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Lenovo (the products will be rebranded as Lenovo by next year) and the previously unannounced departure of the company’s CMO Adrienne Hayes, who has been replaced by Lenovo marketing executive Jan Huckfeldt. The account then went to Ogilvy without a review.

But we missed a far larger piece of news: prior to the Motorola decision, Ogilvy beat out 5 other agencies in a pitch for the Lenovo global brand business.

The company did not publicize the review, but a Lenovo spokesperson confirmed this morning that “There was a pitch for the Lenovo brand work which Ogilvy won.” No official announcement will be made and no further information will be provided, though the spokesperson did clarify that Ogilvy’s Lenovo and Motorola wins were not related.

The last global review for Lenovo took place in 2011 with Saatchi & Saatchi New York beating out CP+B and Ogilvy (which handled the ThinkPad product line at the time). The Publicis shop later led the company’s rebranding efforts with a new logo and identity.

Portions of the account began moving away from Saatchi in early 2014, when Lenovo picked The House Worldwide as its AOR in the EMEA region. Saatchi’s best-known work for the brand remains the $100 million “For Those Who Do” campaign from 2011.

We do not have details regarding Lenovo’s global marketing budget at this time but will update the post when we receive them.

Droga5 has resigned from the Motorola account, ending its relationship with the client after approximately 4 years together.

The agency won the business in 2012 and has created a range of work since then including this campaign starring elaborate set design and another effort promoting the client’s smart watch by mocking the entire “wearables” movement. (This is standard operating procedure for Droga5, of course.)

The decision was made last month. Droga5 will not be producing any additional campaigns for Motorola, and the two parties are currently winding down their relationship by completing some final production work.

From an agency spokesperson:

“Droga5 New York has resigned the Motorola account. The company has undergone many structural changes since Droga5 was first appointed and the agency felt it was no longer an appropriate fit. We wish them every success in their future.”

The agency’s PR department declined to elaborate on the reasons behind the move or to provide comment beyond this quote.

However, we hear from multiple sources that the key precipitating event was Lenovo’s 2014 acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google, which had purchased the company’s phone business in 2012 around the same time Droga5 won the account. That unit operates independently of what is now known as Motorola Solutions, and the parent company announced in January that it would be “phasing out” the brand name entirely. By 2017, Motorola Solutions will become Moto while Motorola Mobility will be merged into Lenovo’s existing phone business…so the Moto X and other products will soon bear the Lenovo name.

According to tipsters, the single deciding factor in the split was the recent departure of Motorola’s chief marketing officer Adrienne Hayes, who formerly ran the division’s communications for Google. The company has yet to announce the fact that she left or to name her replacement, but we hear that a top marketer from Lenovo stepped in to assume her role last month. We also hear that a campaign created by Droga5 and set to launch this summer was shelved due to this executive turnover.

At this time, Motorola Mobility has not responded to our messages regarding Hayes’ departure and Droga5’s decision to end the relationship. Given recent changes in the company’s structure, no numbers regarding the value of the account are available at this time.

One would presume that a creative agency review will follow.

Artificial sweetener brand Splenda appointed JWT Canada as its creative agency of record for North America, AdAge reports. J3 remains the brand’s media agency, with Publicis Health Media and BSTRO handling digital and LaForce & Stevens responsible for PR.

The agency will lead the account out of its Toronto office, beginning June 1. BBDO had previously handled creative AOR duties for the brand in North America, after beating out JWT, Mother and DDB in a 2007 review to win what was then a $35 million account. Heartland Food Products Group purchased the Splenda brand from Johnson & Johnson last summer. 

Splenda global VP of marketing Kim Holdsworth said the brand had an “immediate connection” with the agency, which stood out via its willingness to “challenge brands to push themselves.”

The appointment marks the first time (to our knowledge) that a JWT office in North America has won a creative review since JWT’s chief communications officer Erin Johnson filed a discrimination lawsuit against former JWT global chairman and CEO Gustavo Martinez. JWT New York was awarded creative duties for Nestlé-owned ice cream brand Häagen-Dazs back in March before launching its first work for the brand last month, and Holdsworth told AdAge the brand had “no concerns” over the discrimination lawsuit. 

JWT Toronto CCO Ryan Spelliscy claimed the agency’s goal for the brand is to “put sugar out of business” before admitting that this is a bit of a tall order.

JWT’s first work for the brand, a new product launch, is expected some time in the fourth quarter. It will roll out in the U.S. before expanding to Canada.

JPMorgan Chase confirmed today that it has chosen VaynerMedia to handle its social media business.

A client spokesperson told us that the banking giant has added Vayner to its agency roster but declined to elaborate on whether a review preceded the win or whether Vayner is now officially its social media agency of record.

This news marks the latest shift for a company that now works with Droga5 on its creative campaigns.

Chase sent its digital work to Publicis‘ Razorfish and Rosetta in a 2013 review that saw four holding companies battle for the business. mcgarrybowen had been the client’s agency of record since 2004 and also handled much of its digital business even after the Publicis decision, but that changed last summer when the company sent most of its creative work to Droga5 without a review. At the time, mcgarrybowen retained the corporate portion of the account while Saatchi & Saatchi handled payments (read: credit cards) and campaigns related to Chase’s partnership with Apple Music.

Chase then ended its relationships with those two shops, most recently sending the payment work to Droga in February before that agency’s first full campaign debuted last month. None of these changes involved RFPs or formal reviews.

The current status of Publicis’ ROAR, which was formed to handle Chase digital work and later planned to partner with Saatchi on that part of the account, is unclear as is the size of the business won by Vayner.

It’s also worth noting that Chase–which generally prefers not to publicly discuss its agency partnerships–has never, to our knowledge, officially named a social media AOR. And while the client spokesperson did not clarify when the company had begun working with Vayner, this Cinco de Mayo Snapchat promo does feel a bit familiar.

When current CMO Kristin Lemkau took the reins in January 2014, she told American Banker that the company planned a “digital, Twitter push” to combat recent negative headlines. Last year, a NetBase study found Chase to be the “most-talked-about banking brand” on social.

VaynerMedia representatives have not yet responded to our requests for comment.

WPP has declined to move forward in the McDonald’s creative review, leaving Omnicom (DDB) and Publicis (Leo Burnett) as the two remaining competitors for its business.

Unnamed sources told AdAge of the change today, though neither WPP nor McDonald’s would directly confirm the news.

We hear that the client’s unusual financial demands and calls for a rapid turnaround on the pitch may have played a role in WPP’s decision to bow out of the review.

Sources with knowledge of the matter say that the client told competing agencies to complete their respective pitches within 60 days in order to meet a June 30 deadline. McDonald’s has also allegedly developed a financial deal that led involved parties to “balk.”

Specifically, we hear that the agreement would prohibit the company’s agencies from turning a profit on base compensation as laid out in the resulting contract. This means the shops working on the business would effectively operate at a loss according to the details of the agreement, not counting other fees that may or may not be tied to performance. One source calls these particulars “ridiculous” while another states that only a legacy client would be able to make such demands.

The review is being run by Flock, a consultancy launched in 2013 by former Aegis EMEA media chief Simon Francis. It would appear that McDonald’s is re-examining all of its relationships with its various agencies in the interest reducing its overall marketing spend.

This latest development almost certainly means that the two agencies currently handling the McDonald’s creative will be competing against one another…just as they allegedly did last year when McDonald’s picked Leo Burnett over DDB to promote its All Day Breakfast offering. To our knowledge, the latter agency has not publicly released any McDonald’s work since then.

The review arrives just as the chain’s focus on All Day Breakfast offerings led to what Bloomberg described as “a scramble among its rivals to find new ways to combine eggs, potatoes and meat for a tasty breakfast.” Related campaigns helped the chain to bounce back from “its worst sales slump in more than a decade.”

WPP deferred to the client for comment. We have reached out to McDonald’s and both of its current agencies of record, and we will update this post if/when they respond.

Perhaps most importantly, CMO Deborah Wahl tells AdAge that “I’m Lovin’ It” will remain the company’s tagline.