Bose has appointed Grey as its first-ever lead global creative agency following a review, according to sources close to the matter who spoke to Adweek this morning. Media duties, which were handed to Interpublic’s Initiative and MediaHub last year, were not part of the review.
The audio company had previously created ads in-house and worked with various agencies on a per-project basis. For example, the brand turned to BBDO New York for recent NFL-themed work (though they never responded to our requests for confirmation on that fact). Since Bose stopped short of naming Grey as its AOR after this review, it will presumably continue to work with BBDO and/or other agencies on select projects. We also hear that AMV BBDO and other major UK-based agencies competed against Grey in the pitch.
Bose spent around $20 million in U.S. measured media during the first three quarters of 2015, according to Kantar Media–a decrease from $93 million over the same period (and $135 million total) last year. After bringing Grey on in an official capacity, the company will almost certainly increase its ad spend for 2016.
The news follows the departure of Grey global CCO Tor Myhren for Apple (which owns Bose competitor Beats by Dre) last week.
It also concludes a year which saw several new account wins for the agency, including big ones like Motorola and smaller ones like Pandora Jewelry.