PulteGroup Appoints The Richards Group as Content AOR

Atlanta-based, multi-brand homebuilding company PulteGroup, Inc. appointed independent, Dallas-based agency The Richards Group as its content agency of record. The Richards Group will be responsible for providing strategic counsel and creative work for the Pulte Homes, Centex, Del Webb, John Wieland and DiVosta brands across traditional and digital channels. As best as we can tell, the company had been working with Organic since appointing the agency as AOR in December of 2013

“PulteGroup is on a journey to becoming a world-class marketing organization, and our engagement with The Richards Group is a key building block required for us to reach our intended destination,” said PulteGroup CMO Manish Shrivastava, who was appointed to the position in September of 2014. “It is critical in today’s world of consumer distraction and media fragmentation that we create rich, deep and aspirational connections with our consumers. It gives me great peace of mind knowing that we will have a competitive advantage in this ongoing endeavor with The Richards Group given their history of creating intimate relationships between consumers and home-related brands.”

The appointment marks The Richards Group’s third account win this month, coming on the heels of being named AOR for Pie Five Pizza at the beginning of the month and Famous Footwear yesterday.

The Richards Group Wins AOR Duties for Famous Footwear

Famous Footwear appointed The Richards Group as its new agency of record, following a review. The Dallas-based independent agency will be tasked with creative, brand strategy, digital and social strategy.

“The Richards Group checked off every item on our list in searching for an agency partner,” Famous Footwear CMO Will Smith said. “We were looking for complete cross-platform integration, outstanding creative chops, and strong strategic insights. The Richards Group delivers on all these elements. But one of the things we appreciated the most was their ability to listen. That told us they would be a highly collaborative partner as we move the business forward.”

Y&R Chicago had held creative duties since 2011, following Famous Footwear ending its relationship with Campbell Mithun after more than three years and subsequently launching a review. It is unclear if Y&R participated in the review. 

“We got to know their business as well as we could during the review process, and the briefing they provided us early on was invaluable as we approached the final assignment,” said The Richards Group principal Stephanie Vander Linden, who will lead the Famous Footwear business. “Working with Famous Footwear to find the heart of the brand showed us how well our teams would work together. If that wasn’t motivation enough, we look out the window every day and see a Famous Footwear store across the street. We want to be part of their success.”

The Richards Group’s first work for the brand is expected to run for back-to-school season later this summer. 

Pie Five Pizza Tags The Richards Group as Its Agency of Record

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…

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Zimmerman Wins Jamba Juice, Chuck E. Cheese

Chuck E. Cheese has named Ft. Lauderdale-based agency Zimmerman Advertising as its lead agency, AdAge reports. The appointment concludes a review launched in April and conducted without a consultant. Zimmerman takes over for The Richards Group, which won creative and media duties for the brand back in 2012, and will be responsible for integrated creative, media, strategy and promotion. The brand spent approximately $28 million on measured media in 2014, according to Kantar Media.

Chuck E. Cheese has undergone significant changes recently, including new menu items, in an attempt to appeal more to adults and boost declining sales. According to research and consulting firm Technomic, the brand’s revenue fell from $428 million in 2009 to $365 million last year. The brand will keep its “Where a kid can be a kid” tagline but will continue its efforts to appeal more to parents.

“We have always been a restaurant focused on kids, but now we are also looking to improve the experience for parents,” Chuck E. Cheese chief marketing officer Michael Hartman told AdAge. “We need an agency able to keep up with our breakneck pace and hunger for consumer insight…we found Zimmerman shares our vision for success and obsession with metrics. They are the right agency at the right time to help us ring in a new era.”

Jamba Juice also named Zimmerman as its integrated agency partner, tasked with handling brand strategy, media, creative, social and analytic duties for the California-based chain. The brand had previously worked with specialists but made the decision to go with Zimmerman as its integrated agency of record. Jamba Juice chief marketing and innovation officer Julie S. Washington cited “Zimmerman’s retail experience, strategy and analytics, creative strength and focus on results” as the impetus for the selection. According to Zimmerman CEO Michael Goldberg, Jamba Juice stopped its review mid-process to commit to the agency.

For Zimmerman, the two account wins are the latest in a string of new business since the arrival of Goldberg last September from Deutsch. The agency has picked up ten new accounts since his arrival, and nine in 2015.

Creative Head Warner Leaving The Richards Group

The official word remains “mum,” but sources close to the matter confirm that Carl Warner, creative group head at The Richards Group, will soon leave the agency to launch his own venture.

The move will end one of Warner’s multiple stints with Richards, where he was an art director in the 80’s before serving as CD at DDB Dallas and Team One. He joined the JWT organization as a creative director in its Detroit office in 2003 before the agency moved him to Atlanta, and from 2006 to 2011 he ran that office as co-president/ECD in partnership with former GM Tony Accurso.

JWT South hired Rob Quish as its new CEO in 2010, and in late 2011 he decided to part ways with Warner in a standard internal executive “shakeup.” Warner then spent less than a year as ECD at Atlanta’s Engauge.

This won’t be the first time the CD has broken off to lead an independent operation: after leaving the aforementioned agency in the summer of 2012, he launched his own Warner venture, working for various clients before returning to Richards as creative group head in early 2013.

The Richards Group has no comment at this time on Warner’s departure, the details of which remain unclear. Sources tell us he will announce the launch of his new project later this summer.

The Richards Group Celebrates Courage for Ram

The Richards Group debuted a new spot for Ram geared toward women, entitled “Courage Is Already Inside.”

The spot follows the agency’s “Roots and Wings” effort with Miranda Lambert and the country singer also makes a brief appearance here. “Courage Is Already Inside” follows up on the inspirational tone of that spot, but takes it in a different direction. “Have you ever thought, ‘I could never do that’?” the voiceover asks at the beginning of the spot. The ad goes on to assure women they can “break a stereotype” and go beyond their own expectations to excel because “The courage is already inside.” Accompanying visuals show women surfing giant waves, training at ballet, riding a horse and drawing back an archery bow in displays of triumph over adversity (mixed in with some shots of women driving a Ram, of course). It all comes across as as more convincing and seemingly genuine than say, Ogilvy & Mather’s most recent “Real Beauty” effort for Dove, and a good deal less preachy. A few bad automotive puns aside, it’s nice to see Ram take this direction and hopefully The Richards Group will continue to explore it further with its next installations for the brand.

Chuck E. Cheese’s Launches Creative Review

CEC Entertainment brand Chuck E. Cheese’s has launched a creative review, Adweek reports. The brand spent approximately $28 million on measured media in 2014, according to Kantar Media.

The Richards Group won creative and media duties for the brand back in 2012. It is unclear if the agency will be defending in the creative review, and the brand’s chief marketing officer, Michael Hartmann, declined to comment to Adweek. Hartmann took over in the role in January, after a stint as senior marketing officer at SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, and his arrival was likely an impetus for the review. CEC Entertainment, which owns the brand, was also purchased last year by Apollo Global Management. The arcade and family dining chain has an estimated 577 locations, mostly in the U.S. and Canada.

The Richards Group Launches ‘Renegades’ for Jeep

The Richards Group introduces the new Jeep Renegade with a 60-second spot, straightforwardly titled “Renegades.”

The broadcast spot, which launches today, was built around the song “Renegades,” the new single by Interscope Records’ X Ambassadors, which was chosen in collaboration with the label as the foundation for the campaign. As it turned out, X Ambassadors were working with Alex Da Kid on a song that fit the bill.

“Through this unprecedented collaboration with KIDinaKORNER/Interscope Records, X Ambassadors and Alex Da Kid to build a campaign around an original song, we’re staking a new claim to music and setting the stage for the Jeep brand’s North America marketing launch for the all-new 2015 Jeep Renegade,” said Olivier Francois, Chief Marketing Officer, FCA – Global, in a statement.

“Olivier came forward and challenged us to deliver a song for him that had the theme and the spirit of the new Jeep launch,” Steve Berman, vice chairman of A&M Records, told Adweek. “Sometimes you just get lucky in the timing of how things works. [‘Renegades’] was a piece of art they [X Ambassadors] were already recording.”

While the process of the song selection and its integration as a fundamental building block of the campaign may mark new ground, it’s certainly not the first time Jeep have built a campaign around a song. Last May, the brand released a spot from GlobalHue built around the posthumous Michael Jackson single “Love Never Felt So Good.” The new spot feels even more like a music video than that effort did, complete with text referencing the artist and song title at the beginning of the ad. Shots of the band are interspersed with shots of the new Jeep Renegade and footage of millenials (hello, target audience) doing renegade-y stuff like hopping fences, nightswimming (on what appears to be a quiet night) and skateboarding.

“If you look at the words of this song, if I had given an agency that brief, they would not have cracked a better script than X Ambassadors did,” Francois told Adweek. “The script of the song is totally on brief, it’s spot on…But what really made me feel that [the song] was the campaign was the way they speak of the millennials being the modern renegades. The genius here is that you tie the name of the car, which is ‘Renegade’ to the mindset of the target, which is the millennial target.”

The Richards Group, Wolf Want to ‘Reclaim the Kitchen’

The Richards Group has launched an initiative for Wolf Appliances calling on Americans to “Reclaim the Kitchen” and start preparing more meals at home.

An online spot introduces the initiative by first explaining what exactly viewers are “reclaiming” their kitchen from. It points out that in 1900, “we had 98 percent of our meals in the home,” while today it’s less than 50 percent. It also points the finger at fast and processed foods while admitting, “It’s kind of all our faults.”

But the campaign isn’t about shaming people back into the kitchen. It also offers some advice for how to spend more time preparing healthy meals at home, while offering the encouragement that once you get into the swing of things, it’s not as hard as it initially seems. Proposing small steps, like starting with one home-cooked meal a day, setting aside time to cook with screens off, and planning ahead, makes the task seem less daunting and the campaign accessible. The ad ends by directing viewers to the campaign page, where they can learn more about how to get started (including some simple recipes).

The initiative addresses a widespread problem in this country (how many people do you know that can’t even boil an egg?), and one that makes sense for the brand. While more old-fashioned readers might point out the lack of overt branding here, The Richards Group taps into an issue that is at the core of Wolf’s industry and aligns the brand with something almost anyone could get behind, while still managing to show off their products here and there at the same time.

The Richards Group Partners with Miranda Lambert for Ram

The Richards Group partnered with Miranda Lambert in its latest effort for Ram Trucks, entitled “Roots and Wings.”

Lambert wrote the song of that title especially for the campaign. “I am very inspired by what the Ram brand stands for – being who you are, working hard, staying true to your roots,” she explained in a statement. “I wanted to write a song that would represent all of those things. ‘Roots and Wings’ is personal to me about where I come from and where I am going.”

The song takes center stage in the ad of the same name, which combines live footage of Lambert singing and playing a Gibson Hummingbird, animation, landscapes which “are actual locations that are part of Lambert’s life” and family photos. It will run in 30 and 60-second broadcast versions starting today, as well as a 15-second digital version and will be supported by social media and print elements — including a print ad in the February 2nd release of Country Weekly magazine, which will feature Lambert on the cover. The campaign is also timed to coincide with the singer’s “Certified Platinum Tour,” which will feature corr-promotional material at several venues.

The Richards Group Clowns Around with the Spurs for H-E-B

The Richards Group once again teamed up with Sugar Film Production and director Chris Smith for a lighthearted series of ads starring the San Antonio Spurs.

The new ads — “Toga,” “Slogans,” “Barbie” and “Wise” follow much the same formula as last year’s campaign, employing lighthearted, self-depreciating humor. In “Toga,” Tim Duncan returns to find Tony Parker, Patty Mills, Kawhi Leonard and Manu Ginobili so enamored with H-E-B’s Greek yogurt that they’re all decked out in togas. ”Why is everyone Greek?” Duncan asks disdainfully upon seeing his teammates, before singling out Kawhi as looking particularly ridiculous. Other spots find different ways to poke fun at one or more of the Spurs players, whether its Patty Mills‘ accent in “Barbie” or Kawhi reprising a line from last year in “Slogans.” Spurs fans already know what kind of goofiness to expect from the annual campaign, and The Richards Group doesn’t disappoint.

“Working with these guys, you can really tell what makes them world champions”, said Chris Smith. “Their ability to go into a huddle, takes notes and run with them—while adding their own individual flavor—makes them a lot of fun to work with each year.” (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Fiat Accidentally Took Viagra and Grew a Bigger Car, Says New Ad That's Total Poppycock

There are ads where you can’t quite believe the premise, and this is one of them.

How did the Fiat 500X SUV come to be? Well, it seems a little Fiat accidentally swallowed a little blue pill—and quickly grew bigger. Seriously, that’s the plot of this commercial from The Richards Group. It’s even odder because it’s so nicely shot. (It was reportedly filmed in Pitigliano, Tuscany.)

Says the YouTube description: “The Fiat 500X is bigger, more powerful and ready for action. In this official Fiat 500X commercial everyone who comes into contact with the 500x gets a little excited and you will too.”

Or you could be left wondering what you just saw.



The Richards Group Rolls Out ‘Fact or Fake’ Series for Orkin

The Richards Group has unveiled a new “Fact or Fake” series of online videos for Orkin Pest Control, the latest in their “Bug Wisdom” campaign.

“Fact or Fake” is a series (so far two) of videos that attempt to prove or disprove commonly held views on bugs, MythBusters style. In the video, above for example, the crew attempts to answer the question, “Are Daddy Longlegs Poisonous?” Much like MythBusters, The Richards Group tries to mix scientific inquiry with goofy humor. If the results aren’t exactly funny, they are at least still entertaining — especially when you consider the typical approach for advertising pest control. Another spot in the series tackles the question of whether termites eat faster when rock music is played.

The Richards Group also recently released a series of “Top 6” listicle videos, counting down the best bugs to eat and the most venomous insects. With both coming on the heels of the initial “Bug Wisdom” series, it’s clear The Richards Group has been quite busy for Orkin. Stick around for “Does Rock ‘n’ Roll Make Termites Eat Faster?” and credits after the jump. continued…

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Fiat's New TV Ads Made Entirely of GIFs: Are They 'Endless Fun' or Overkill?

For better or worse, Fiat’s latest TV commercials might make your head spin.

The brand recently commissioned some wacky GIFs from The Richards Group for the Fiat Tumblr page, but Chrysler CMO Olivier Francois liked them so much that he had them stitched into 15- and 30-second spots—now airing on TV under the tagline “Endless fun.”

Robots, cats, narwhals, people in horse masks, a guy in a rabbit suit twerking against a Fiat. The spots are frenetic, goofy, weird, loud and—at least according to Fiat—fun. They’re getting a mixed reaction on YouTube, though.

If you don’t like them, maybe you can do better. Fiat will soon ask consumers for their own #MyFiatUSA GIFs and will post the best ones to its Tumblr page.



The Richards Group, MPC’s ‘Godzilla’ FIAT Spot Goes Viral

The Richards Group teamed up with production house MPC Creative for a new FIAT campaign featuring the King of Monsters, Godzilla.

The 45-second spot utilizes footage from the Warner Bros. Godzilla reboot (which couldn’t possibly be worse than the last attempt at rebooting the franchise) hitting theaters today, with CG of Godzilla crafted by MPC Film. In the spot, Godzilla eyes a FIAT, shoves it in his mouth and then spits it out, which prompts the “It’s a lot bigger than you think” tagline. The spot has proven a huge success, racking up over 5 million views since its debut less than 2 weeks ago. That’s not too surprising, as it’s a pretty fun tie-in that manages to balance promoting Godzilla and FIAT pretty well. Stay tuned for credits after the jump. continued…

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The Richards Group Takes on Flowers for Edible Arrangements


The Richards Group debuted a new creative direction for Edible Arrangements, the originator of the “fresh” (if you’ve ever tasted their product, you know otherwise) fruit bouquet and global category leader, in their first integrated marketing campaign for the brand. The new campaign “marks an evolution from several different creative campaigns for different media to one streamlined positioning played out from storefronts to social media to broadcast to banner ads.” As you may recall, Edible Arrangements named The Richards Group their agency of record last summer.

The Richards Group’s new multi-million dollar campaign (the brand’s largest advertising campaign to date) centers around the new tagline “Pick Fruit. It’s Fresher.” with an integrated effort championing the choice of fruit over flowers. “Reaction,” the 30-second television spot featured above, typifies the approach. Various mothers’ open-mouthed reactions to flowers appear at first to be enthusiastic, but are revealed to be bored yawns. The spot debuts in advance of Mother’s Day on April 28, with both a 30-second and 15-second version.

“This advertising, across all channels, pokes a little fun at the same old gift and encourages families to celebrate mom in a fresh way. And our research shows that moms really appreciate creativity and ingenuity in gift-giving,” said Edible Arrangements’ chief marketing officer Jeff Lobb. Stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Dodge Celebrates 100 Years With Great New Ad Starring Centenarians

Elderly people tend to get short shrift in commercials, much as they do most everywhere in life. Kudos to Dodge and The Richards Group, then, for celebrating the automaker's 100th birthday by putting the spotlight on humans born around the same time.

Not all of them are centenarians, but many of them are. (The rest mostly seem to be sprightly 90-somethings.) And they're here to dispense some hard-won wisdom about what they've learned in a century on this Earth. And they dispense it with humor, style and not a little defiance.

"You learn a lot in 100 years," says on-screen copy, as a 2015 Challenger screeches out of the frame. "Dodge. Born 1914."