Omnicom Outduels WPP for Ford Ads -- WSJ
October 09 2018 - 2:02AM
Dow Jones News
By Nick Kostov
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (October 9, 2018).
Ford Motor Co. has appointed Omnicom Group Inc.'s BBDO as its
lead creative agency, following one of the most closely watched
reviews on Madison Avenue this year.
The automotive company announced the appointment on Monday,
casting it as part of a new marketing strategy it said would yield
$150 million in cost savings annually. Ford is also planning to put
a greater emphasis on emerging technologies to create more
personalized brand marketing.
The news is a setback for WPP PLC, which counts Ford as a top
client, and comes a few weeks after the ad-holding firm named a new
chief executive. Ford began re-evaluating its marketing model
months ago, including the company's relationship with WPP, which
had worked with the car marketer for decades.
Following the review, Wieden + Kennedy has been named as a
"creative and innovation partner" for specific projects, Ford
said.
WPP will continue to work with Ford on duties including its
media planning, media buying, shopper and performance marketing,
website development and customer-relationship marketing.
Although it remains unclear whether WPP sustained a fee cut on
the business it kept, the loss of the Ford's creative duties will
cut between $100 million and $150 million from WPP's annual
revenue, according to a person familiar with the company.
A spokeswoman for WPP declined to comment on the question of
fees.
Creative work for Ford accounted for 1% to 1.5% of revenue at
WPP, while overall duties for Ford comprised 5% of revenue,
analysts at Kepler Group LLC said in a note last month. WPP
reported revenue of $19.7 billion last year.
"We accept this difficult decision with our heads held high,"
Satish Korde, who leads WPP's work on the Ford account, said in an
internal memo. "WPP is assessing the impact and implications of
this decision, which cannot be fully determined until more detail
is known."
In a note on Monday, Pivotal analyst Brian Wieser said the news
is negative for WPP, but "not as negative as it could have been,
given the parts of the business they are retaining, which are all
generally the faster growing aspects of any given account."
Ford is under pressure to cut costs as profit shrinks and its
share price remains stuck near a decade low. Chief Executive Jim
Hackett, appointed last year, has made improving Ford's "fitness"
his main near-term focus, including a plan to cut $25.5 billion in
cumulative costs by 2022 across engineering, manufacturing,
marketing and other areas.
WPP created a dedicated agency group for the automotive giant,
now called GTB, pulling in advertising and marketing resources from
its various agency groups. The Ford account generated more than
$500 million in annual revenue for the holding company, people
familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal in April.
--Mike Colias contributed to this article
Write to Nick Kostov at Nick.Kostov@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 09, 2018 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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