Yesterday McDonald’s appointed Colin Mitchell as global vice president for the McDonald’s brand. In the new role, Mitchell will move to Chicago and take responsibility for communicating McDonald’s brand vision and positioning throughout the company’s global organization. He will report to McDonald’s global CMO Silvia Lagnado.
The appointment comes amidst a creative review which McDonald’s launched in April in an effort to consolidate its U.S. ad business. WPP subsequently dropped out of the review last month, citing unusual financial demands and leaving Omnicom’s DDB and Publicis’ Leo Burnett as the remaining finalists.
The two agencies are completing the final stage of the pitch this week. In May, various sources told Adweek that McDonald’s had made “unheard of” demands of its potential agency partners, which must allegedly operate at cost for all future projects as part of a contract that forbids agencies to make a profit without meeting certain unnamed performance goals.
Mitchell arrives at McDonald’s from Ogilvy & Mather, where he has spent the past sixteen years. Most recently, Mitchell served as worldwide head of planning at the agency in a role he has held since February of 2008. While with Ogilvy & Mather, he has worked with brands including IBM, Coca-Cola, BlackRock and Cisco. Mitchell is also a board member of the Advertising Educational Foundation and the Advertising Research Foundation, as well as a Fellow of the Partnership for New York City.
“Colin is widely respected as one of the brightest and most talented planners in the advertising industry and we are delighted to welcome him to McDonald’s at such an exciting and important time,” Lagnado said in a statement. “His invaluable experience working with major global companies and his passion for brand vision and strategy will have a lasting impact in our business.”