Hasta La Creative!

Diamond Foods has selected San Francisco-based integrated, independent agency Duncan/Channon as agency of record for its Pop Secret and Diamond of California nuts brands, following a competitive review.

The agency will lead branding, advertising strategy, creative and media efforts for the brands. Duncan/Channon will also be tasked with creating a new brand platform and national campaigns “designed to support Diamond Foods’ focus on building and energizing its premium snack food and culinary nut brands.” These campaigns will feature both traditional and non-traditional components, such as social media, and will be informed by the agency’s brand strategy department. Initial campaigns focusing on Pop Secret and Diamond of California are expected early next year.

“We were very impressed by the ideas and creative presented by Duncan/Channon, but it was the team itself that clinched this decision,” said Burke Raine, vice president of marketing, snacks, at Diamond Foods. “There’s something special going on at this agency and we can’t wait to put our teams together to build on the great momentum across the Diamond brands.

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White Castle has selected independent marketing agency Resource/Ammirati as its agency of record, following a competitive review which began in July.

Zimmerman was the incumbent agency, serving as the brand’s agency of record since 2009, and defended in the review. Prior to Zimmerman, White Castle spent fifteen years with JWT.

In its new role as agency of record, Resource/Ammirati will be responsible for “integrated brand strategy, advertising, retail activation, website development and all mobile, digital and social media initiatives,” and will partner with New York-based independent agency Crossmedia on media planning and buying. Resource/Ammirati will lead the account out of its Columbus headquarters, in collaboration with its New York office.

“Resource/Ammirati is the right partner at the right time as we look to grow our business—giving current customers more reasons to visit us, and enticing new customers to experience White Castle,” said Kim Kelly-Bartley, White Castle vice president, marketing and menu development. “They brought to the pitch the right capabilities and great chemistry—they also delivered fresh insights about our core ‘Cravers’ as well as innovative creative.”

New work from Resource/Ammirati is expected in the second quarter of 2015.

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Coca-Cola has chosen MediaCom to handle the company’s media account in Mexico, sources told Adweek. MediaCom succeeds Publicis Groupe’s Starcom, who have handled the account for over a decade.

Mexico remains Coca-Cola’s largest market per capita, despite a recent tax on high-sugar beverages that led the company to introduce a mid-calorie cola. Annual media spending was estimated at around 100 million dollars. The assignment comes a year after Coca-Cola awarded MediaCom media planning and buying account in the U.K. It also follows MediaCom’s recent win on the 575 million dollar Anheuser-Busch InBev media planning and buying account.

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Back in July, we shared news on McDonald’s upcoming attempt to improve its financial standing via that old canard, “storytelling in advertising.”

August brought word that Leo Burnett would be tasked with handling the reinvention, and today The Wall Street Journal elaborated a bit on the details. The brand’s sort-of-new tagline will be:

“Lovin’ Beats Hatin’”

Yes, that’s it; no Gs. “People familiar with the matter” said that the point behind the slogan, which will officially launch in January and feature in an extended :60 spot set to air during Super Bowl XLIX, is that consumers have the ability to spread happiness despite all the time we spend trolling online. (Some of us, at least.)

No need to stop dancing, though, JT: “I’m Lovin’ It” will still be around.

(more…)

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Diageo-owned whiskey brand Jonnie Walker is in the early stages of a review for its global advertising account, having just sent out requests for information to agencies, BrandRepublic reports.

Incumbent agency BBH, who has held the account since 1999, was among the agencies invited to participate in the review and vowed to “vigorously defend” the business. BBH recently appointed Joakim Borgström as creative director on the Johnnie Walker account, following his arrival from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

“The brand’s relationship with BBH has been hugely successful, with the agency producing award-winning work of outstanding creativity,” said Guy Escolme, the global brand director at Johnnie Walker, adding, “As the market leader, Johnnie Walker feels the time is right to invite selected agencies, including BBH, to look at how we take the brand forward into the future.”

Johnnie Walker has worked with agencies other than BBH, including Anomaly New York for the recent 6-minute long digital ad “The Gentleman’s Wager,” starring Jude Law. There is no word yet on which agencies, aside from BBH, were invited to participate in the review.

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Last night after we left the office, we learned that another chapter in the history of independent agencies has closed with the acquisition of Minneapolis-based Olson by ICF International.

What is ICF? It’s a D.C.-based “provider of consulting services and technology solutions to government and commercial clients” that wanted to expand on the “customer engagement, e-commerce and system-integration” services it offers to clients in the public and private sectors.

The basic idea is that ICF, which was previously able to make recommendations to its clients regarding their marketing strategies, can now follow through on that advice via campaign execution.

It’s also worth noting that, while Olson still made the lists of top indie agencies before this week, its owner John Olson did sell to the private equity group KRG Capital Partners back in 2009.

(more…)

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Earlier today, Anheuser-Busch’s head of PR Lisa Weser tweeted at us to release a statement: despite multiple reports to the contrary, WPP’s Mediacom has not yet won the account.

Here’s the full text, attributed to marketing VP Jorn Socquet:

Earlier this week, several news outlets erroneously reported that Anheuser-Busch had concluded its media agency search by awarding the business to WPP Group’s Mediacom.

This was an inaccurate report that was never announced by Anheuser-Busch. In fact, we have not yet awarded our U.S. media planning and buying business to an agency partner, and remain in talks with two finalists – WPP’s Mediacom and Publicis Groupe’s Spark.

When an agency is selected and retained, an announcement will be made by Anheuser-Busch.

It’s worth noting that we weren’t the only outlet to post about Mediacom’s “win”: on Monday, the story also appeared in Adweek, AdAge, MediaPost, St. Louis Today, and more.

And here we thought we were the only trade pub getting bad tips. Reminds us of the reports claiming that Deutsch LA is this close to winning Sprint…

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Back in June, Nestlé sent out an RFP to a select few agencies for a corporate makeover repositioning Nestlé as a “recognized and trusted food and beverage, nutrition, health and wellness company.” Now Nestlé has chosen FCB Chicago for the corporate brand assignment, AdAge reports.

According to the original RFP, the scope of the assignment is domestic and will include a “big idea” along with four TV executions with a focus on Nestlé brands Nesquik, Gerber, Outshine and Pure Life. It is unclear when FCB Chicago’s first campaign for the assignment will launch and AdAge was unable to reach Nestlé for comment.

The assignment comes on the heels of FCB Garfinkel winning creative duties for Nestlé’s North American regional water brands, which include Poland Spring, Arrowhead and Ozrka. According to Kantar Media, Nestlé spent $813 million on U.S. measured media in 2013.

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Anheuser-Busch InBev announced today the appointment of WPP’s MediaCom as its agency for media planning and buying in the U.S., following a review which began in July.

A-B InBev initially began searching for a new media agency in April, launching a review that also included media buying and planning over the summer. Starcom formerly handled media research and planning, while in-house group Busch Media handled buying. According to Adweek‘s sources, Publicis Groupe’s Spark was the other finalist. The brewing giant, whose brands include Michelob and Stella Artois, in addition to Budweiser and Bud Light, spends around $575 million in media annually. MediaCom’s appointment follows on the heels of the media agency’s winning of the Merck account at the end of last week.

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Razorfish will announce more cuts to its global staff today.

Following March’s dismissal of 20-30 North American employees and another round of cuts in July that involved what tipsters told us was a total of approximately 100 individuals, an agency spokesperson confirmed that more staffers have been let go today. The internal announcement, according to a reader, will happen right around the time this post goes live. Here’s the official statement:

In an effort to shape our organization to align with our clients’ progressing needs, we have made a workforce reduction. The adjustment impacts less than 2% of our global headcount and will reinforce Razorfish’s ability to enable business transformation, which has been a primary source of our growth. Razorfish brings intelligence together with technology, media and creative to drive our clients’ business forward. We remain focused on delivering best-in-class work for our clients and are looking forward to playing a major role in the recently announced Razorfish Global Network.

Neither PR nor readers gave us more details on the cuts, and based on the agency’s own Wikipedia page (which is apparently “written like an advertisement“), that 2 percent amounts to approximately 40 staffers at locations not specified in the quote above.

As a reminder, news from the Razorfish team hasn’t all been negative. The agency hired Michael Chamberlain, formerly of BBDO, to run its San Francisco office less than a month ago, and recent employee reviews note its “really positive working atmosphere.”

No updates on clients, campaigns, or the reason for this adjustment.

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