NEW YORK Just two months after Cheil Worldwide bought a 49 percent stake in Beattie McGuinness Bungay, the U.K. shop is working on Samsung and will be handling assignments for the electronics company when BMB opens an office in New York this year.
Korea's largest agency now wants to create a global network beyond its identity as Samsung's in-house agency. The man tasked with that effort, new Cheil global COO Bruce Haines, has said he wants to make BMB into an international micro-network. Samsung, with $400 million in global spending, may well be the engine to drive that expansion. In 2005, Samsung appointed Leo Burnett its lead global agency after less than a year with an ill-fated holding company arrangement with WPP Group. (Burnett, like WPP, works closely with Cheil, in which Samsung holds an 18 percent stake.)
There's no love lost with Burnett: U.K. native Haines quit as CEO of Burnett's U.K. operations in October 2007 over his disagreement about his company's pairing with corporate sibling Arc. Haines has identified London and New York as his top priorities, and Cheil USA has been adding to its management team in the States.
Adding more wrinkles to this group of unlikely bedfellows is the fact that outsiders like Burnett and WPP companies must first sell their ideas to Cheil, with the unit effectively acting as another layer of client approval even as Cheil USA is gearing up to become a more aggressive competitor.
Haines and BMB partner Trevor Beattie declined interview requests. Jennifer Friedberg, gm at Cheil USA, said: "Leo Burnett handles a lot of initiatives with our global office. It has yet to be seen how it will all break down."
Added a Burnett rep: "Nothing has changed. We're still Samsung's global lead agency and we work closely with Cheil."
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