Mr. Venables & Mr. Bell - you are the winners! Today, Audi USA has announced it's new agency of record: Venables, Bell, and Partners of San Francisco, CA. Scott Keogh, who is Audi's first Chief Marketing Officer, put the company's creative work on review just after he joined Audi this May. Venables won the significant $70 million account after being the last man standing between some big players: The incumbent McKinney & Silver (who've had the account for over a decade), Bartle, Bogle, and Hagarty (who are backed by the ad giant Publicitas), and the ever clever Fallon of Minneapolis. The pitch was just for creative work, media will still be run by the mega buying agency MediaCom.
What does all this mean? Besides a major boost in Venable's billings, hopefully some pretty cutting edge creative. Venables was a big player in the recent pitch for Merceedes-Benz's Smart car (the former employer of Mr. Keogh. Coincidince?) and are known for doing some pretty smart advertising. It's a hard blow to McKinney who picked up the business 13 years ago when Audi was on the verge of being pulled out of the US. They've been successful in building the brand, but lately with their most recent ">" ads and theme line of "Never Follow" their advertising has been a little lackluster.
Now that there's a new man in charge , and a new agency to back him up we're excited to see what comes down the pipeline. Audi is a very innovative company, hopefully their new marketing will be able to keep up.
[Source: AdAge.com]
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