New Commercial Arts wins place on Sainsbury’s roster with home brand Habitat
As we’ve said before the golden triangle for a new UK agency is a bank, a price comparison site and a a retailer, three substantial accounts that are usually free of international complications.
New Commercial Arts already has a bank (Halifax) in the bag and a couple of weeks ago beat Lucky Generals to Moneysupermarket.com. Now it has a retailer – sort of.
NCA has been appointed by Sainsbury’s (yikes) to handle Habitat (not so yikes.) Most of us probably didn’t know that Sainsbury’s owned Habitat, one of the UK’s most glamorous brands as the so-called swinging sixties turned into the sleazy seventies. It is, though, now Sainsbury’s’ online “home” brand and, therefore, an opportunity for the new agency to recapture some of that long-faded glamour.
NCA’s James Murphy and David Golding had lots of fun with Harvey Nichols back in their adam&eve days, winning loads of awards at Cannes and elsewhere.
It’s also, of course, a foot in the door of the Sainsbury’s agency roster, headed by Wieden+Kennedy which handles supermarkets and The&Partnership which has Argos. Neither will be sleeping terribly easily with NCA in the wings.