Best Buy to Move Away from the Agency of Record Model

By Patrick Coffee 

Today we learned that Best Buy — longtime client of Crispin, Porter + Bogusky — will follow a string of big-name companies like Chobani and FIAT Chrysler in abandoning the creative agency of record model and working instead with various shops on a by-project basis.

This means that CP+B will no longer be the client’s AOR.

From a Best Buy spokesperson:

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“This is part of broader changes to our marketing strategy and it is consistent with moves we have made in other areas of the business.

Some marketing work will be consolidated and other pieces will be brought in-house. We will continue to have agency support, but it will be focused on specific projects.”

Best Buy had this to say about the agency itself:

“[CP+B] has been a great partner and they are [welcome] to bid on future projects.”

So the relationship between agency and client will not end immediately and the former may indeed work with the latter on future projects. Best Buy’s campaigns for the Summer and Back to School seasons will be led by CP+B and run as scheduled, but these efforts will be the last to list Crispin as the client’s agency of record.

Crispin initially won creative duties for Best Buy’s Geek Squad promos, working on that account long before they brought Bieber and Ozzy together for Super Bowl XLV. In 2007, the agency won more work at the expense of BBDO and eventually became Best Buy’s creative AOR; its most recent BB campaign to appear on this blog was a Rushmore-inspired back to school ad that ran last July.

A source tells us that the client has already begun issuing the RFPs in question and that AKQA is one of the winning agencies.

Both CP+B and AKQA refrained from commenting on this story.

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