Mars is cleaning some house when it comes to its agency relationships and as a result, it’s consolidated its global creative business with BBDO and DDB. What this means is that TBWA and SapientNitro are out, as the latter two agencies will end their ad work for the mega-brand by September (Sapient, though, will continue digital strategy work and support the Mars corporate site beyond that).
BBDO now adds Dove, Twix, Pedigree and Whiskas to its Mars portfolio that currently includes M&M’s, Snickers (which it re-won in 2009), Uncle Ben’s (won last year) Orbit and Masterfood among others. As a result, the agency has grabbed the majority of Mars global assignments. As for DDB, it will not only take over Milky Way in the U.S. as well as Combos, but will grab the baton for the rest of the global Mars Petcare line that features products including Kitekat and Temptations/Dreamies (yeah, we’ve never heard of them either).
Says Mars global CMO Bruce McColl in a statement: “We are grateful for the contributions that SapientNitro and TBWA have made to the growth of our brands over the years. This was a tough decision, but we are very confident that consolidating our brands with DDB and BBDO will help us continue to build our connection with consumers all over the world.”
Well, while the Mars Petcare line among others has been taken from TBWA\Chiat Day, its L.A. CCO Rob Schwartz seems quite confident that the agency will rebound with another major client win (see above).