In what our friends at Adweek are calling a trend, three agencies are currently involved in a review for the Golden Corral account: Mullen, Merkley + Partners and VIA.
Adweek compares the review to two recent “casual dining” wins (TBWA’s Buffalo Wild Wings score and Panera’s move from Cramer-Krasselt to Anomaly, but not Publicis’ Red Lobster account) and quotes a spokesperson saying that a decision “could come as early as this week.”
The account is not as small as one might think: the chain spent $55M on media last year.
Here’s its latest spot, starring a fairly standard augmented food lineup:
While Golden Corral has worked with Horizon Media on the buying front for some time and will continue to do so, the chain did not mention a creative AOR on any of its recent campaigns.