This morning brought big news on the expectorant front for McCann Worldgroup: outsized “health, home and hygiene” consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser–maker of pretty much everything that comes in a package–signed the agency to lead creative on Mucinex and Delsym, two of the industry’s top products for treating coughs.
This move comes as part of a series of announcements following a full review that also led to wins for Droga5 (Air Wick, Clearasil) and Wieden+Kennedy (Finish).
Before choosing McCann, Reckitt’s in-house team handled advertising for Mucinex.
The full employee memo from chairman/CEO Harris Diamond after the jump.
To All,
I am pleased to announce that just one week after winning the global Microsoft business, we have added yet another blue-chip global marketer to the McCann Worldgroup client portfolio. Reckitt Benckiser has awarded us global creative responsibilities for Mucinex, one of their biggest brands, as well as their Delsym brand cough syrup. This win also followed a very competitive review, with our McCann New York and McCann HumanCare team prevailing.
Like the earlier Microsoft win, strong strategic and creative leadership was the key to our victory, as was our tenacious determination to succeed and our ability to bring together the required skill sets from our agencies. As we move forward with Microsoft, we will continue the collaborative multiplatform approach that helped us win the account by focusing on the best way to deliver integrated and multidisciplinary global solutions for our clients.
For Worldgroup, the Reckitt Benckiser and Microsoft wins along with many others throughout the world continue the strong momentum we built coming into 2014. As you know from past notes, we have been strengthening our relationship with our existing clients and earning more assignments while greatly improving our creative reputation. We have seen recognition of these gains from our core global clients, such as Coca-Cola, General Mills, General Motors, L’Oréal, MasterCard and Nestlé, as well as others. Our new business pipeline continues to be robust and we are optimistic about further wins, both from existing and new clients.
Our industry prominence and reputation continues to grow. This year we have already achieved “Agency of the Year” recognition for McCann Torre Lazur from MedAdNews, and for Weber Shandwick from The Holmes Report. Last year we won numerous top creative awards and “Agency of the Year” honors, culminating in our rise to being one of the top-ranked networks in global creative awards. With the creative awards season starting to get underway, on Friday I had the honor of attending the One Show with Prasoon Joshi as he collected 4 Gold Pencils for the incredible work his teams are doing in India. We are determined to continue with this progress.
Earlier this year, Advertising Age magazine tagged us as “the top shop to watch in 2014.” So far, you’ve made that prediction come true.
Thank you for all of your contributions.
— Harris
On a side note, we can only assume that McCann’s subsequent campaign will feed the growing fortunes of these shamelessly slimy protagonists:
