Two weeks ago, we reported that MDC Partners’ Anomaly had won the global Beats by Dre creative review.
Today AdAge published a piece announcing the same development. Interestingly, this story does not include any sort of official confirmation as Anomaly, Beats and R/GA representatives declined to comment just as they did for our earlier coverage.
The most important part of the piece is the revelation that Anomaly will open an L.A. office to handle the Beats work and other, unnamed clients. CEO and co-founder Carl Johnson will run the new operation.
R/GA was not involved in the review and sources close to the matter told us that Anomaly’s win will not affect its relationship with the client, but the development is notable in that both that agency and Anomaly have now opened offices specifically to handle the work related to this account. (R/GA L.A. and London led creative on previous campaigns.)
As reported in earlier coverage, marketing VP Jason White (formerly with W+K) led this search for a new agency partner to help the premium headphone brand expand overseas. CMO Omar Johnson will also reportedly play a larger role in the brand’s creative efforts moving forward.
The big question now is what sort of work Anomaly will be producing and how the account will be divided between R/GA and the MDC shop, especially in terms of international and domestic campaigns. AdAge’s sources claim that Anomaly could be working on everything from TV spots to experiential executions.
R/GA and MDC Partners again declined to comment for this post. The Beats organization never responded to our earlier emails.