Hasta La Creative!

U.K. retail giant Sainsbury’s is “is in talks with a number of top creative agencies” in a review being led by recently-promoted (last August) director of marketing planning and propositions Mark Given, The Drum reports. According to that publication, the account is estimated at around £60 million (or almost $87.5 million). Media buying and planning is not part of the review and will remain with PHD. 

AMV BBDO has been Sainsbury’s agency of record for nearly forty years. Its most high-profile work for the client has undoubtedly been the yearly holiday campaigns it created for the brand. In recent years, these high-budget spectacles have included the children’s book-inspired “Mog’s Christmas Calamity” and “Christmas is for Sharing,” the somewhat controversial 2014 spot depicting the 1914 Christmas Truce between Britain and Germany during World War I.

“Sainsbury’s and AMV have a well-established relationship that stretches back over 35 years and, as you would expect, from time to time it’s important for us both to take a fresh look,” a Sainsbury’s spokesperson told The Drum. 

Sainsbury’s three largest competitors — Tesco, Morrisons and Asda — have all switched agencies in recent years. Tesco moved its $170 million creative account from W+K London to BBH London in January of 2015, Morrisons dropped nine-year incumbent DLKW Lowe for Publicis London a year later and Asda left VCCP for Saatchi & Saatchi this April. 

So, when taken in conjunction with its senior marketing shakeup last year, the news is not entirely surprising. Sainsbury’s also recently made a takeover bid for Argos, who currently works with WPP’s CHI&Partners. AMV BBDO is presumably defending in the review, but details about which other “top creative agencies” are involved are currently unavailable.

Cargill stevia plant-based natural sweetener brand Truvia appointed Carmichael Lynch and sibling agency Spong PR as its integrated AORs in the U.S. following a review, AdAge reports. 

Carmichael Lynch will serve as creative and strategic agency of record, while Spong PR will handle PR, influencer engagement and media relations, and both agencies will collaborate on digital and social content.

“We really liked the fact they are both outstanding agencies and they’re under one roof, so they’re constantly aligned strategically and we’re already starting to feel the advantages and synergy,” Truvia global marketing leader A.J. Aumock told AdAge, adding, “it’s hard to know where one ends and the other begins.”

Publicis-owned, Minneapolis-based agency Fallon has worked on advertising for Truvia in the past, while UM has handled media buying and planning and RF|Binder has been responsible for health professional communications. 

According to Kantar Media, Truvia spent $5.8 million on measured media in 2014, but that figure could rise considerably in the coming years as the natural sweetener market expands. Recent research from AC Nielsen found that while the sugar substitute category in the U.S declined between 3% and 4%, year-over-year for the period ending April 9, natural sweetener sales grew between 4% and 6%. Truvia also recently released a new, honey-based Truvia Nectar product and could benefit from the FDA’s newly updated nutrition fact label rules around sugar, requiring manufacturers to state how much sugar has been added on food and beverages’ nutritional labels, as well as its percentage of the daily recommended serving. 

Dallas-based fast casual pizza chain Pie Five Pizza selected The Richards Group as its agency of record following a review. The Richards Group will be tasked with creative, brand, digital and social strategy, and media buying and planning for Pie Five.

“The Richards Group is a renowned branding agency known for putting emerging concepts on the map through their iconic campaigns, like Chick-fil-A and Motel 6,” said Randy Gier, Chief Eating Officer* for Pie Five Pizza parent comapny RAVE Restaurant Group. “Fast-casual pizza is still a developing segment. As we gear up to open our 100th location, we look to The Richards Group to catapult our brand to the next level. Plus, when Stan Richards stood up in front of his entire staff and concluded the pitch with ‘Let’s go have fun,’ we knew we’d found an agency partner that could speak our language.”

For The Richards Group, the appointment follows the agency winning lead creative duties on KeyBank back in January and winning creative AOR duties on Schwab Trading Services away from Havas in March of 2015.

“Pie Five is the kind of brand you dream of working with. It’s fun, it’s memorable, it’s growing and it’s got some of the sharpest minds in the industry behind it,” said The Richards Group principal Pete Lempert. “We can’t wait to sink our teeth into this brand and their product.”

The Richards Group’s first campaign for Pie Five Pizza is expected to debut this fall.

*We have to ask how one attains such a title…

Two weeks ago, we reported that MDC Partners’ Anomaly had won the global Beats by Dre creative review.

Today AdAge published a piece announcing the same development. Interestingly, this story does not include any sort of official confirmation as Anomaly, Beats and R/GA representatives declined to comment just as they did for our earlier coverage.

The most interesting part of the piece is the revelation that Anomaly will open an L.A. office to handle the Beats work and “several” other, unnamed clients. CEO and co-founder Carl Johnson will run the new operation.

R/GA was not involved in the review and sources close to the matter told us that Anomaly’s win will not affect its relationship with the client, but the development is notable in that both that agency and Anomaly have now opened offices specifically to handle the work related to this account. (R/GA L.A. and London led creative on previous campaigns.)

As reported in earlier coverage, marketing VP Jason White (formerly with W+K) led this search for a new agency partner to help the premium headphone brand expand overseas. CMO Omar Johnson will also reportedly play a larger role in the brand’s creative efforts moving forward.

The big question now is what sort of work Anomaly will be producing and how the account will be divided between R/GA and the MDC shop, especially in terms of international and domestic campaigns. AdAge’s sources claim that Anomaly could be working on everything from TV spots to experiential executions.

R/GA and MDC Partners again declined to comment for this post. The Beats organization never responded to our earlier emails.

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The post Grain Belt’s New Lager Gets The Colle & McVoy Treatment appeared first on AdPulp.

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.