We Hear: Allstate Adds 72andSunny to Its Creative Agency Roster

By Patrick Coffee 

Insurance giant Allstate has quietly begun working with 72andSunny on unspecified creative projects, according to a party with knowledge of the matter.

The precise nature of the purported relationship and the projects in question is unclear at this time, as is the effect they might have on longtime agency of record Leo Burnett Chicago.

Allstate, which is the largest publicly held insurance company in the U.S. and trails only State Farm in annual revenues, has been working with Leo Burnett for 60 years. The agency first turned a manager’s impromptu slogan “You’re in good hands” into a TV spot back in 1957—and the rest, as they say, is advertising history.

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Today a spokesperson for Allstate said that Leo Burnett remains the company’s creative agency of record while noting that it regularly works with other shops. When asked to elaborate, the spox declined to name any additional agencies or confirm whether 72andSunny is currently on its roster.

Leo Burnett deferred to the client, and a 72andSunny representative declined to comment.

Allstate has recently made some significant changes to both its marketing team and its ad campaigns. Approximately one year ago, Gannon Jones, who was formerly head of marketing at MillerCoors, became SVP of product marketing. Jones had left the beer giant in late 2015 immediately after 72andSunny won a creative review for AOR duties on its Coors Light brand—and according to reports (and tweets) released at the time, he played a key role in choosing the MDC Partners agency.

Weeks before Jones joined Allstate last June, the company pivoted away from its “Mayhem” campaign, which started running in 2010*, in favor of an effort centered on cameos from celebrities like Leslie Jones and Adam DeVine. That work also tweaked the classic tagline to “It’s good to be in good hands.”

Mayhem quickly returned, however, and has appeared in many ads over the past year including the latest, uploaded immediately before we posted this story.

Allstate is a huge account. Kantar Media’s latest numbers have the company spending $343 million on marketing in 2016 and more than $87 million during the first quarter of this year.

*As noted by our readers, the Mayhem campaign began in 2010, not 2004. We momentarily confused Dennis Haysbert with Dennis “The Beeper King” Duffy.

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