M&C Saatchi takes giant Woolworths account off Leo Burnett; returns after four year break
After only two years Woolworths has dropped Leo Burnett, appointing M&C Saatchi as its key creative partner for its Supermarkets account.
Prior to losing the business to Droga5 in March 2012, M&C Saatchi Sydney had held the account for ten years – since first winning it from Leo Burnett Sydney (the latter creator of the long-running ‘Fresh Food People’ campaign).
In March 2014, Leo Burnett was appointed lead agency on the business, with Droga5 dropped from the roster soon after.
The win for M&C Saatchi comes less than a year after the agency snared chief creative officer Andy DiLallo from Leo Burnett. CB believes DiLallo had a very strong relationship with Woolworth’s, which may have been a factor in the switch to M&C Saatchi.
Says Woolworths director of marketing, Andrew Hicks: “We’re delighted to be starting a new partnership with M&C Saatchi. They have a formidable client list including some iconic and complex Australian brands and we’re very happy to be adding Woolworths to that list.”
“We have a solid foundation to build on with our price position and long-standing reputation as the Fresh Food People. With M&C Saatchi, we now look forward to creating a new generation of work that supports the next phase of our transformation.”
Says M&C Saatchi Group CEO, Jaimes Leggett: “Woolworths is one of Australia’s largest advertisers, one of the country’s most valuable brands and one of the most sought after accounts. We couldn’t be more excited to be back working with the Woolies team.”
Hicks thanked outgoing agency Leo Burnett for their work over the past two years: “Leo Burnett have brought their skills and ability our diverse business. We thank them for their work in that time, including the relaunch of the Fresh Food People commercials, Low Price Always and most recently our Make It Famous Christmas campaign.”
Says Pete Bosilkovski, CEO, Leo Burnett Sydney: “The Woolworths Supermarket business is in a state of significant change. We wish them all the best. I want to thank our talented people for their incredible hard work and unrelenting commitment over the two years. As always, our focus now is on our people, especially those directly affected by this change.”
29 Comments
LOL
After that godawful Cheap Cheap campaign, it was only a matter of time.
Probably be more cheap cheap – same CCO…
But the same CCO is responsible for it?
they must love it to follow the account with him right?
This headline should read “Woolworths chew up and spit out yet another agency.”
RIP Leo Burnett, still fresh in our memory.
Hi @Adam Id be reluctant to use your services if you are prepared to write such rude and inflammatory comments about clients in our industry. Just a little feedback. cheers
@hi …….and with that rather silly attempt at superiority one hopes that Adam would be just as reluctant to have you as a client.
“Slurp… this chalice tastes funny?”
@hi You say ‘rude’ and ‘inflammatory, I say ‘just an honest opinion’. I work with plenty of clients who value honesty, thank you for your feedback though.
There are not too many Adam’s in our industry so for the record @Adam’s comments above remain his alone and are not mine.
Commiserations to all affected at Burnetts and good luck to M&C going forward. Hopefully there can be some osmosis of the great Leo’s crew over to Tom’s house.
fresh food! stale advertising.
@Adam Wells
FYI, when a commenter’s name is highlighted in bold red on this site, it means there is a link to their website, or some other url bearing their work or identifying them personally.
In the case of Adam, it’s Adam Noakes, a well known and opinionated agency creative and producer, and absolutely no one would confuse him with a production side producer of long standing who misunderstands the basics of some very simple digital technology and feels the need to brown nose ad agencies online for his own self interests.
You may disagree with Adam’s characterizations, but this is a client m (Woolies) with allot of money to spend but also with a reputation of being a nightmare for creative people and plowing through two large agencies (Burnetts and Droga) in the past two-three years while demanding and receiving mediocre work from one and all.
The pettiness of the comments here staggers me. This is a huge win for M&C. WW’s is one of 5 biggest accounts in the country. It’ll probably deliver a minimum $10m+ in revenue to the agency [not profit, revenue]. WW’s want great work as much as M&C are capable of delivering it. Not everything has to have ‘Cannes’ written all over it to be successful, as Bunnings proves every day of the week. Commiserations to Leo’s. Congrats to M&C.
Love your comment and would like to add that Mr A. Wells is in fact more client side now. As a cost controller he play off agencies and clients to his own benefit. So he is addressing his comment to the client, not the agency.
I’m Adam!
Not many people would want this account, there are only 3 types of creative business who would:
1. Those so large that if they don’t have huge clients they will die (like M&C & Leos)
2. Those who think growth is about large clients and will do anything to try and win them (like droga)
3. People who are new to the industry and think it might be a good idea (nobody else)
It’s a great win from a commercial point of view, terrible for the agency and the people at that agency. But that’s not just a WW problem, that’s all major clients in Oz.
WW don’t have an advertising problem, they have a product and relevance problem, that core business problem drives panic in to marketing which creates poor advertising.
M&C, Leos and Droga can’t fix that. So the roundabout keeps going..
It’s quite funny though, the incompetence of the advertising industry and marketing world is truly laughable. The Mad Men are truly mad.
It’s sad that a as an industry, agencies have had to bare the brunt of inconsistencies on the client side. Leo’s had to put up with three marketing directors, a disinterested CEO and a company in crisis. But changing agencies ain’t gonna help Woolies. Until they get their shit together, it will be the same nightmare for M&C. Wait and see. I give this Hicks guy 12 months tops before he’s replaced and the new guy will change agencies again. History has a habit of repeating itself. My heart goes out to those at Leo’s who will be losing their jobs. Sad, sad, sad.
@Not Adam
No, not everything has to have ‘Cannes’ written all over it, but neither does it have to have ‘Bog Standard Retail’ written all over it either.
Calling out bad clients for bullying creative agencies into doing mind-numbing work is not petty, it’s essential to having any semblance of creativity left in advertising.
Marketing managers who fear for their jobs are not helping their brand and they’re not doing anything positive for the state of intelligent communication with consumers either.
Accountants assume that they can run a business because they’re able to count, but without those who can create, those who have vision, they can only count the short term gains, because the long term value of their brands will diminish overtime to the point of irrelevance.
Great work wins awards and builds brands. Simple, and why we’re all not counting beans for a living.
Woolies has now destroyed two good ad agencies in Oz with the allure of big money disguising the hard core lack of imagination at the core of its business. R.I.P Droga and Burnetts, hope M&C doesn’t make three.
Dear Adamymous,
I think you’ll find it was actually Droga and Burnetts who ploughed through WW’s.
Dear Adamyous,
You need to get your facts right. Woolies didn’t destroy Droga5, Droga5 destroyed Droga5. WW’s let Droga5 do exactly the advertising they wanted to and they chose to do’Monday Tues etc’. That wasn’t WW’s idea, it was 100% D5’s idea and it failed miserably. As for Leo’s, the ECD on the business did one campaign and was hardly, if ever, seen again. Didn’t understand what was needed, or wasn’t prepared to do what was needed. WW’s was without a creative lead as Leo’s spent months trying to find a CD for the business. And, after their disastrous D5 experience who can blame WW’s for being more cautious? And just for me, what do you think of Bunnings work?
Why are people thinking this win is anything to do with Justin or especially Andy.
It wasn’t.
Forget the last 4 years,M&C had Woolworths for 12 years.I was there for the last 5 but not on the Woolies account.They did some beautiful work and everyone who worked on it enjoyed it and it showed.( Hi Maria)I was working on Optus at the time and looked on a bit jealous.Cool brand stuff top production co and everyone seemed to have lot of fun.
Two agencies later I wish like Woolworths I was back there.
Miss the parties too.
Forget the last 4 years,M&C had Woolworths for 12 years.I was there for the last 5 but not on the Woolies account.They did some beautiful work and everyone who worked on it enjoyed it and it showed.( Hi Maria)I was working on Optus at the time and looked on a bit jealous.Cool brand stuff top production co and everyone seemed to have lot of fun.
Two agencies later I wish like Woolworths I was back there.
Miss the parties too.
A Too many Adams here.
B You couldn’t wish to work on Woolies while at M&C… All due respect to the work of the team at the time.
C 3 agencies in 5 years, as DJ, the problem are not the agencies.
D Hicks did nothing with Dan Murphys…. Don’t think he’ll do much with Woolies.
E Still a great addition for M&C
Congratulations Leo’s.
Commiserations M&C.
Ha, Andy having a strong link to Woolies is not true.
I worked at Leo’s while he was there and he had limited interest in the account and the client had limited interest in him. Andy was responsible for ‘cheap, cheap’ and that was the beginning of the end in my opinion. Yet Woolies are going back for more! Maybe ‘cheap, cheap’ worked better than we think.
Good luck all.
This appointment has nothing to do with Andy – I doubt he would’ve been seen, heard, or mentioned in discussions. This is all about WW’s wanting Tom Mc and his team of grown-ups.
Yes, of course, poor Woolworth’s.
The client as victim is a condition too often overlooked, because marketing directors are generally such knowledgeable, reasonable, creative, broadminded, charismatic, risk taking individuals.
Oh, and by the way, Mate, what’s that brown mark on your nose?