Hasta La Creative!

Office Depot OfficeMax has ended its relationship with Interpublic Group after approximately two and a half years and moved its entire account to Zimmerman Advertising without a review. According to several sources, the company did not issue an RFP and no agencies beyond Zimmerman were invited to compete.

McCann New York and UM had been handling the chain’s creative and media duties, respectively, since 2014.

The chain’s headquarters in Boca Raton is quite close to the Fort Lauderdale-based agency, and the two parties have worked together before: Zimmerman won the business in 2011 after Office Depot split with Y&R. As in this case, there was no review.

A Zimmerman spokesperson deferred to the client on the news today. We reached out to multiple executives at Office Depot, but none have responded to our queries.

A McCann spokesperson provided the following statement:

“We have enjoyed our relationship with Office Depot Office Max.  It has become obvious over the last few months that we needed to end our relationship. We are very proud of the work we delivered over the past couple of years. We want to thank ODOM for the opportunities they have given us and wish them every success.”

We hear that McCann and UM were not directly aware of the pending loss, though the end of the relationship may have been inevitable. Last summer, McCann’s production studio Craft Worldwide absorbed Staples’ creative production studio after that company dropped mcgarrybowen, thereby creating a potential conflict of interest with its other office supply chain client.

The two companies made plans to merge in 2015, but the FTC challenged the proposal that December, arguing that it would “significantly reduce competition nationwide in the market for ‘consumable’ office supplies sold to large business customers for their own use.” Both parties then abandoned the merger after a federal judge agreed with the FTC’s decision and blocked the deal.

Office Depot has been through some very significant changes since then. Last August, CEO Roland Smith announced his plans to resign, and the company named Gerry Smith, former EVP and COO at Lenovo, as his replacement last month.

We hear that the executive shift made the agency move more urgent and that Jordan Zmmerman’s existing relationship with the client’s svp of marketing played a role in the decision not to issue an RFP. The agency also often emphasizes its reputation for retail-focused work in pitches.

At least one sources claims that Office Depot has not been particularly active on the marketing front in recent months. But the agency did work on a holiday campaign, and the chain has increased its marketing spend in recent months.

According to the latest numbers from Kantar Media, Office Depot spent approximately $54.3 million on measured media in 2015 and $60 million from January to November of 2016.

This marks the second new business win in recent weeks for Zimmerman, which also took on a more prominent role on the Nissan business when the auto brand consolidated its ad business on the East Coast, moving away from TBWAChiatDay L.A. after more than three decades.