Today FIAT Chrysler Automobiles confirmed our report from February regarding the status of its Jeep account, which went to DDB Chicago after a very confusing review. The Omnicom shop will also be agency of record on Chrysler’s Alfa Romeo Italian sports car brand moving forward.
From a client spokesperson:
“FCA US LLC has selected DDB Chicago as the lead creative agency for the Jeep and Alfa Romeo brands. As the agency of record, DDB Chicago will be responsible for Jeep and Alfa Romeo brands U.S. advertising programs.”
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This news marks the latest addition to DDB’s client roster under new CEO Wendy Clark following its New York office’s win on the Time Warner Cable business.
It’s the most recent in a series of Chrysler reviews stretching back to last March, when the auto giant parted ways with former Jeep AOR GlobalHue (which subsequently moved its operations from Detroit to Manhattan). The client then picked Doner and The Richards Group to lead the U.S. relaunch of its Alfa Romeo brand with the new 4C Spider model and sent Jeep-based project work to 72andSunny.
At the time, FCA declared that it would not name an AOR for either Jeep or Alfa Romeo, choosing instead to go with the “rotating roster” model.
That all changed over the summer as the client issued RFPs for both accounts and completed a digital review that saw its business move from SapientNitro to IPG’s Huge, which has opened a Detroit office to handle the business.
Back in January, AdAge reported that FCA had added DDB, FCB and Translation to its roster before this year’s Detroit Auto Show. Rumor held that FCB would be lead on Jeep while DDB would handle Alfa Romeo and Translation would work on global brand campaigns.
If FCB did indeed win Jeep, the honeymoon didn’t last long.
Our sources told us last month that the business would go to DDB Chicago after that shop produced the “4x4Ever” spot for Super Bowl 50. FCA then confirmed last week that it would end its relationship with W+K Portland, which had been its global brand AOR, after six-plus years.
At the time of this post, FCA has declined to comment on the status of its relationships with FCB, Translation, Doner, The Richards Group and Iris Worldwide, which made the “Portraits” spot that Adweek chose as its favorite Super Bowl 50 campaign. It’s also unclear at this time whether FCA will launch a review to replace W+K.