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Here we go again: WPP’s MEC media agency repitched for Chanel recently and the result is…yet another new WPP agency, Plus, designed to handle creative and digital well as media (which will be shared between Plus media folk from Mindshare as well as MEC) for the iconic French house.
WPP already has bespoke agencies for Ford (Team Detroit in the US, Blue Hive elsewhere – so a bespoke network really) Miller Coors and Bank of America among many others. In the UK it stops short of shunting people from its existing agencies into a new agency (they would revolt, somewhat timidly) but runs a lead agency system for big clients like News Corp and Vodafone which isn’t that far removed.
Chanel’s new Plus agency will recruit creatives from Ogilvy and digital types from AKQA.
On the face of it, Chanel hardly seems to merit a standalone agency, billing not much more than $100m in the US and about the same again around the world. Fashion houses also like to make their own ads, not always to advantage as in this recent Chanel campaign featuring Brad Pitt.
Wonder where the new Plus HQ will be? Somewhere nice in Paris? Fifth Avenue? And will Plus-ites be dressed by Karl Lagerfeld and sprayed with No 5 every morning?
Could prove to quite a popular billet in WPP-land.
