A Week After Its Merger, Mullen Lowe Wins Royal Caribbean

One down, one to go. Royal Caribbean has selected Mullen Lowe as its new lead agency after a creative review, as a parallel media review nears completion.

In the creative contest, Mullen Lowe beat Droga5, Deutsch and 22Squared. Final pitches took place two weeks ago at Royal Caribbean's headquarters in Miami, and the agencies were notified today. The brand's annual media spending hovers around $80 million.

In a statement, Royal Caribbean CEO Michael Bayley said he was impressed by Mullen Lowe's strategic and creative thinking in the pitch.

The news comes a week after Mullen merged with fellow Interpublic Group shop Lowe to create the Mullen Lowe Group. So, while the winning agency entered the review as Mullen, it came out as Mullen Lowe. However, no Lowe executives contributed to the pitch.

The new lead shop succeeds JWT, which had handled the business for eight years.

The finalists for Royal Caribbean's media account are Media Storm, Mediahub (the media arm of Mullen Lowe) and the incumbent, Mindshare, according to sources. The shops have been briefed and will make final presentations in late May.