Wieden and Kennedy London have some thoughts on the resignation of their long held Starbucks account. On the Welcome To Optimism blog they write:
“It’s been a tough relationship with Starbucks for the past 4 years and their recent business performance only amplified the challenge. We were burning people out and it was affecting morale at the agency. So we decided to resign the account.”
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Lots of shops have willing dropped clients from their roster. Crispin resigned Miller in 2007 because of “fundamental differences in strategy and creative.” Cramer-Krasselt also resigned the CareerBuilder.com account in 2007, because they hated the brand’s ethics. Remember that one? That was fun.
Or, there’s the Fallon tactic, where agencies “‘resign’ clients (usually by beating clients to the punch by issuing releases moments before they do)” according to Adweek.
It’s possible that W+K resigned the account with their staffers best interests top of mind and the cost/profit ratio second. The blog entry goes onto to give props to Wieden for kicking Starbucks to the curb despite a very weak economic market. Sure. You got balls, but not so sure you get kudos for bailing on an account because of their financial problems. What – W+K is only there for the good times? What happened to do or die?
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