Earlier this month, we posted on ASICS launching its first formal creative agency review since 2014. The sneaker brand signed with MDC Partners’ Vitro back in 2009 and later added 180 Amsterdam to handle international campaigns.
Now we hear it has dropped all its roster shops.
Since ASICS did not respond to various requests for comment, some aspects of that review remain unclear, such as whether it concerns the global account or simply the U.S. portion of the business. But multiple parties have confirmed that stateside incumbent 180LA will not be involved, and several more tell us that the Omnicom shop parted with several members of its leadership team in the wake of that decision.
As we hear it, the group that left 180LA was relatively small. But it did include creative directors David Povill and Dave Cuccinello, chief strategy officer/managing partner Mike Harris, and Eric Reilly, who managed the Boost Mobile account. Boost’s parent company Sprint recently told us that 180 officially remains on its agency roster, though the two parties do not appear to be working on any new campaigns at the moment.
Povill and Cuccinello joined the shop in early 2015 and made the Adweek Creative 100 list earlier this year around the same time that UNICEF’s “Unfairy Tales” campaign earned a Grand Prix Lion for Good at Cannes.
A 180LA spokesperson has declined to comment on the news, so we can’t post specifics regarding the total number of team members who left the shop in recent weeks.