Hasta La Creative!

Panera Bread Chief Marketing Officer Michael Simon said today that its creative agency Cramer-Krasselt did not quit the marketer, as the agency’s leaked internal memo seemed to indicate.

“Cramer-Krasselt did not fire us,” he said. Rather, he said that the chain had been pushing the agency to bring the advertising to the next level over the last couple months because Panera has been tweaking its marketing strategy due to softening sales. “We weren’t performing at the levels we wanted,” he said. Mr. Simon said that Cramer-Krasselt ad been producing some new work, but that while the ads were good, they weren’t breakthrough enough.

“We told them we were going to open it up for review, and they decided not to participate,” said Mr. Mr. Simon. Panera has since launched the review and reached out to about eight agencies, said Mr. Simon, who declined to name the participants.

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