McCann London – Cheapflights
Cheapflights, the global flight search and travel deals website, has appointed McCann London as lead content agency to support its drive to accelerate its international brand profile. McCann has already worked with Momondo, the Copenhagen-based travel comparison and inspiration site, and Cheapflights’ sister brand within Momondo Group, on a series of successful interactive campaigns including “ClickTwo Travel” and “Friend Compass.” McCann London is firstly turning its attention to the highly competitive Canadian market with the goal of giving Cheapflights a major brand boost in the territory. A new campaign will break in late September and run through to the end of November 2016. This appointment does not affect Cheapflights’ relationship with its global brand and offline agency, Forever Beta.
Arc/Quaker City Mercantile/Mekanism – MillerCoors
MillerCoors has named the Philadelphia-based agency Quaker City Mercantile (formerly known as Gyro Worldwide) as lead creative and digital strategy agency for its Miller High Life brand. The creative account had formerly been with Leo Burnett, whose shopper marketing agency Arc will continue to work with the brand, with DigitasLBi handling digital work. Other alcohol brands on Quaker City Mercantile’s roster include Hendrick’s Gin, Milagro Tequila and Rhode Island’s Narragansett Brewing Company. MillerCoors also tapped roster agency Mekanism to handle its Keystone Light brand. Both changes were made months ago, but have just been confirmed this week. Arc will continue to support below the line and channel solutions for other MillerCoors economy brands. Digitas will no longer support Miller High Life, but will continue to service other brands in the company's portfolio.
GOVT – OCBC Bank
GOVT has won the OCBC advertising account in what could prove to be the new business coup of the year for a local agency in Singapore. The agency, which has an office in KL as well as its home base on Outram Road, claimed the business after a final round of pitching with Singapore’s largest agency, Ogilvy, according to numerous industry sources. GOVT has landed a one-year contract to handle the bank’s advertising starting from the beginning of 2017. The local shop takes on the multi-million dollar account from multi-national network McCann, which did not participate in the review.
Zenith Optimedia – Coty
Last year, Zenith Optimedia, the Publicis Media agency, won the consolidated Coty media business after a review, with annual ad spending estimated at $600-plus million. Now, Coty has selected Publicis Media again, with Zenith taking the lead, after another global review to handle all of the Procter & Gamble brands that are joining Coty as well. That adds another estimated $300 million in spending to the assignment or more than $900 million total. The P&G brands joining Coty are part of a $12.5 billion acquisition that was announced last year that Coty recently said is expected to be completed in October. The acquisition includes P&G’s Fragrance, Colour Cosmetics and Hair Colour Businesses that include fragrance brands such as Hugo Boss and Gucci, and the cosmetics brands COVERGIRL and Max Factor. The acquisition also includes hair colour lines such as Wella and Clairol. Bringing together Coty and the P&G Specialty Beauty Business is expected to create one of the world’s largest pure-play beauty companies with advertising and promotional spend estimated at well over one billion dollars.
Ardmore – InterTradeIreland
InterTradeIreland has appointed Ardmore Advertising as its advertising and design partner following a competitive tender and pitch process. Ardmore, one of Northern Ireland’s leading integrated communications agencies, will develop and deliver creative design solutions and deliver comprehensive marketing, advertising, print and related services. Ardmore was chosen to support InterTradeIreland in continuing to develop its brand “Discover What’s Possible” and promote its range of business services which help SMEs trade into the cross-border market and to innovate and develop new products, processes and services. InterTradeIreland’s suite of business supports also offer small businesses practical tendering assistance and award winning tendering workshops, funding information and advice and key all-island business research and intelligence.
FCB Africa – Barclays Africa
FCB Africa has emerged as the winner of the consumer component of the Barclays Africa Group advertising account. The financial services group, which includes Absa in South Africa, split its account into B2B and B2C components. Mortimer Harvey has won the business-to-business component. Brett Morris, FCB Africa CEO, confirmed that the agency has been informed that it has been chosen to manage the consumer account, as well as that the formal agreement is still being negotiated. Agencies working on Barclays Africa have included The Jupiter Drawing Room (Johannesburg), Base Two, Mortimer Harvey, Publicis Machine and Rogue among others. The entire business was out to pitch, except for sponsorship, brand design and internal change management (Rogue). During the procurement phase, Wingfield made it clear the group was looking for a more efficient agency model that offered a higher business return.
Clemenger BBDO Sydney – Rugby league World Cup 2017
The Rugby League World Cup 2017 (RLWC2017) has appointed Clemenger BBDO Sydney as its creative agency after a competitive pitch. After a 5 way pitch, the agency will be responsible for a major creative campaign across Australia and New Zealand in the lead up to next year's event. The RLWC2017 will be contested from 27 October to 2 December 2017 and hosted by Australia and New Zealand with three pool games also being played in Papua New Guinea. The tournament will be the biggest event in Australia in 2017, and aims to Celebrate Rugby League, inspire communities and entertain the world. The agency will commence work this month.
Rediffusion Y&R – Presidency University
Presidency University, one of the most prestigious and heritage institutions in India, has chosen Rediffusion Y&R to handle its creative mandate for the celebration of its 200 year anniversary. While the exact names of the agencies beaten in the final fray are not known, it can at least be confirmed that the final round included presentations from several of the most renowned agencies in Kolkata and Mumbai. The agencies were asked to make a creative presentation on how the agency can take the legacy and heritage of the institution forward as they approach their milestone anniversary. The bicentennial celebration of the prestigious university will be a national as well as an international event, with seminars in India, Britain and in US. There will be academic workshops, debates, international seminars, and lectures by distinguished academicians, Nobel laureates and Oscar winners who attended the school.
Markham & Stein – Porsche LATAM
Markham & Stein has been named Agency of Record for Porsche Latin America; the pan-regional subsidiary of the German luxury automotive brand for Latin America and the Caribbean. In this role, they will handle integrated marketing for 17 importers across 23 countries. The announcement comes after a lengthy review and a reorganisation by Porsche of their marketing strategy for these countries to be led more centrally out of their Miami office. Both principals, Markham Cronin and Jeff Steinhour have extensive experience with auto brands having worked on Porsche North America at Carmichael Lynch and Mercedes Benz, BMW's MINI and Volkswagen at CP+B respectively. Planning and initial projects will begin in September with the first big launches coming within the next several months.
POSSIBLE – Newell Brands Inc
Global digital agency POSSIBLE has been chosen to lead web strategy for consumer goods powerhouse Newell Brands Inc. The agency will design a digital experience that creates global consistency, while staying true to individual brands for Newell’s iconic portfolio including Paper Mate, Rubbermaid, Sharpie, and Graco. The first phase of the program is already underway with the creation of the initial brand sites in the enterprise platform. The design will not only help align Newell’s brands, but provide a platform that will support consumer confidence and satisfaction. The new sites take the purchasing behaviour of today’s consumers into consideration and communicate each brand’s unique proposition.
J. Walter Thompson Melbourne – Simplot
After a competitive pitch process that commenced back in June, Simplot has appointed J. Walter Thompson Melbourne as its lead creative agency. Simplot is the latest in a string of high profile new business wins for J. Walter Thompson Melbourne, which has included Treasury Wine Estates, Harris Scarfe and Jetstar among others. This growth has been fuelled by a transformation of the agency's in-house offer via the building of a Shopper Marketing division, a bolstering of its social capabilities, the assembling of one of the best qualified retail teams in the country and the establishment of an unrivalled end-to-end production capability.
