Hasta La Creative!

Last week we posted on rumors of behind-the-scenes changes in Nationwide’s agency roster — and while the client’s Super Bowl teasers indicate that McKinney will remain its creative agency of record, its relationship with Atlanta-based Moxie has shifted.

For context, Publicis Groupe acquired Columbus, Ohio agency Engauge in August of 2013 with the intention of merging it with Moxie’s existing operations under the ZenithOptimediaGroup banner (at the time, the Engauge client roster included Nationwide as well as Chick-Fil-A and others). Last March, the union of the two agencies became official with the Moxie relaunch.

Word of a pending restructuring began to circulate shortly thereafter. We did not receive a formal statement from the agency about layoffs that occurred last Fall, but we can confirm that former Engauge CEO/Moxie Chairman Nick Bandy was among those dismissed in a move that allegedly cut as many as 47 jobs.

Multiple sources later claimed that the Columbus office would be closing as a result of changes in the Nationwide account (along with other strategic factors); members of the Moxie/Engauge team primarily worked on projects related to Nationwide’s ongoing sponsorship of NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Junior. Nationwide’s statement last week held that the company “continue[s] to have a relationship with Moxie” and that the agency would be working on “other projects” moving forward, but the current status of that relationship remains unclear.

What is clear is that major changes occurred at the agency’s Columbus location, which appears to be closed in keeping with claims made by multiple sources. The listed phone number redirects to a voicemail account, and at least one leading member of Moxie’s Ohio creative team has left the agency: ECD Tony Sharpe, who worked on Nationwide and other accounts, was no longer with the agency as of last month.

Here is an unusual #StateOfTheAgency update:

Simplification without sacrificing results and rigor. #BetterTogether #StateOfTheAgency

— Moxie (@MoxieUSA) January 22, 2015

Moxie has not responded to repeated requests for comment over the past three weeks; updates as we receive them.

Last Friday, Chicago Business Journal reported on some changes in the status of the very large S.C. Johnson business — primarily the fact that portions of it had “quietly” moved from Ogilvy Chicago to Energy BBDO in recent months.

This week, multiple sources claim that the general report is accurate, that the company has been sending more of its creative work to the BBDO side, and that an ongoing creative review could see more business changing hands.

Neither client nor agencies have officially responded to our requests for comment, but two things are clear: S.C. Johnson has yet to complete its first major agency review since breaking with FCB (then DraftFCB) in 2011 and Energy BBDO currently handles a larger share of the business than it did last year. This is what a company spokesperson told the Chicago publication:

“[The company is] going through a review exercise…it’s typical we would do this as contracts are up.”

The biggest unknown at the moment is how many brands, exactly, have moved from one agency to another.

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We have very little to go on at the moment, but sources tell us that one or more divisions of the lime-friendly Corona beer business are preparing for an agency review.

Cramer-Krasselt is currently AOR for Corona Extra while GS&P remains the agency of record for Corona Light after winning that brand, along with fellow Crown beers Pacifico and Victoria, in 2011. La Comunidad handles Spanish-language campaigns for Corona Lite and Canada’s Alpha Zulu Kilo has also created work for the company.

Here’s GS&P’s latest featured ad, which appeared in AdAge back in March:

We’ve received no official word on this rumor from any of the relevant parties, but Corona has been open about its attempts to “rebrand” in the interest of capturing a larger share of the domestic market from chief competitor Bud Light; its spending has increased in turn.

Whether the gossip is true or not, future Corona Light/Extra campaigns will almost certainly move even further away from the beach.

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We know that Fitbit, one of the leaders in the new “wearable tech” movement, launched its first ad this week via San Francisco’s Argonaut.

We also know that the somewhat-mysterious SF agency West has counted Fitbit rival Jawbone among its clients. Here’s some work in the form of a mini-doc attributed to West and Creative Director/writer Ben Hughes:

Today we learned, via the company itself, that it does not plan on changing its existing relationship with West, which will apparently remain its creative AOR for the foreseeable future. This despite a string of tips indicating otherwise (which we strongly suspect to be written by one person).

You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

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In September, we posted on the Camel/RJ Reynolds account leaving South Carolina/New York-based agency BFG Communications after more than 17 years. While multiple sources told us that the account went to Havas Chicago, we never received confirmation.

Today we hear of another account shakeup at BFG: a tipster claims that Snyder’s-Lance may be shopping around. The client, maker of sandwich crackers most often encountered in workplace vending machines around the country, signed with BFG in December 2012.

After our initial post on Camel, several readers reached out claiming that at least 50 team members at various offices had been laid off; today a tipster claims that the loss led to the closing of offices in Savannah and Tampa and that two rounds of layoffs in recent weeks have reduced the total workforce at the agency’s South Carolina office.

Another tip claims that the MillerCoors account is no longer with Bromley Communications of San Antonio. MillerCoors did sign the Publicis agency as its Hispanic media buying/planning AOR almost exactly six years ago, but the reader tells us that the client will be shopping elsewhere due to disagreements over audience targeting strategies.

We’ve yet to receive confirmation regarding either of these tips. Updates as they arrive.

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The North Face is making a big push to expand its brand. At the end of October, the company launched a new campaign called “Your Land,” its most expensive marketing effort to date; now a source tells us that it might have opened an agency review as well.

First, the spot created by Mekanism (with web experience designed by Colorado’s Factory Design Labs), which will make its TV debut during this week’s edition of Sunday Night Football:

For the record, we really hope the surfer in this spot wasn’t trying to bring his board on the L train at rush hour.

We know that North Face chose Factory Design Labs as its AOR in 2007 and that Mekanism took over the TV portion of the account recently, hence the credits on this new campaign (which has earned coverage in Fast Company, The New York Times, and other pubs).

A source tells us that, as part of this new initiative — which sees the company increasing its marketing spend by 50 percent – the rest of The North Face business is currently in review.

We’ve yet to receive confirmation or information about which agencies might be involved. Updates when they come in and credits for the ad above after the jump via Adhugger.

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Today we received word of some big changes brewing at DDB New York.

The first hint came in June when the agency hired Chris Brown, who had been CEO of DDB Group Australia since 2012, to run its New York office. (Peter Hempel, CEO of DDB NY since 2005, is now chief executive of the larger DDB Group.)

Since then, DDB NY won the Iams and Eukanuba pet food brands accounts and began planning its larger restructuring; the biggest announcement in the near future will be the hiring of a new chief creative officer to lead the office’s newest incarnation. We don’t know exactly when the news will drop, but the change is coming — this yet-to-be-named CCO will aim to make the most of DDB New York’s existing talent while pushing for new business.

In the meantime, however, “restructuring” unfortunately means downsizing. Today the agency let what we believe to be a small percentage of its New York staffers go in the interest of better aligning its team with the coming changes.

We hear that DDB’s shift will include more leadership moves and that its long-term goal is to create a more efficient operation in Manhattan to better serve both current and future clients (while pitching some new business that might not have been considered in the past). No word on which departments were hit hardest today.

In short, expect significant announcements from DDB in the coming days and weeks. Updates when we receive them.

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7-Eleven, the chain beloved of Middle Americans everywhere, signed with Dallas-based TracyLocke back in 2002.

Since then, the brand has gotten ambitious: first their outlets started replacing all the Brooklyn delis where we buy our horny goat weed, then they decided to start sponsoring startups.

Now we hear that they might be looking for a new ad agency as well. A tipster claims that this week the agency received notice that 7-Eleven would not be renewing its contract in 2015.

TracyLocke won the business after GSD&M resigned more than a decade ago, and now it appears that the brand is looking for a change on the creative and marketing fronts. While we haven’t received confirmation on this tip, our last two posts about the departure of one CEO and the hiring of another were 100 percent accurate.

In 2002, 7-Eleven was estimated to be a $30M account; that number is certainly larger now.

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Today in tips that are almost certainly not true, someone tells us that Kit Kat has begun a UK agency review that will “probably” go global.

Three reasons we don’t put much faith in this tip:

1) JWT has been Kit Kat’s AOR for some time (except in the US, where the candy is produced by Hershey rather than Nestle). In fact, just a week ago JWT Amsterdam released the “Give Holland a Break” campaign.

2) The agency’s spot “Break From Gravity,” which hit two years ago, got more attention than any other recent Kit Kat ad.

3) This is now officially the most popular “brand tweet” ever with more than twice as many favorites and nearly twice as many retweets as the 360i Oreo one that you still hear about all the time. And JWT London did it.

That work alone made us devote more of our attention to Kit Kat than we have in years, so there wouldn’t be much reason for the brand to review its creative agency at this point, would there? Sounds like someone might be jealous.

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Someone wants the trade press to know that Infiniti will sign with CP&B.

A source told AdAge this morning that the competition is all over, “although a final contract has not yet been signed.”

Way back in July we established the fact that TBWA would not retain the account and that the initial pitch involved seven agencies; a September report claiming that CP&B and GS&P were the last two parties standing preceded a slew of tips insisting that CP&B would be the winner. That happened exactly one month ago — and now it seems that the “source” has succeeded again in planting the story.

Of course CP+B has yet to comment, because no agency can confirm such reports before the official statement is drafted with the client’s approval.

But we have to wonder who has been trying so hard to leak this news — and why the announcement has been delayed so long when our readers told us that the decision had already been made a month ago.

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