Adam&eveDDB bounce-back from John Lewis to continue with BT Business

It’s all change at adam&eveDDB this week: John Lewis and Waitrose are on their way as the agency declined a repitch (it hardly has much to prove, especially on the former) while Lloyds Banking Group’s Halifax has returned from New Commercial Arts and the Omnicom agency is strongly tipped to pick up the revamped BT Business after a tough pitch against Droga5 and Mother.

BT Business now includes cloud-based BT Global and BT’s Enterprise arm, making it a substantial account. BT Business was formerly with London indie Now. Publicis Groupe’s Saatchi & Saatchi handles the BT consumer account plus mobile arm EE.

The John Lewis Partnership review must have come as a surprise to A&E although it’s worked on John Lewis and, latterly, Waitrose for more than a decade and there have been marketing changes at embattled JL. The agency, Britain’s biggest by billings in 2022, has also lost Virgin Media to VCCP and National Lottery, now under a new owner and embroiled in a marathon pitch with Leo Burnett and VCCP.

So new sole CEO Tammy Einav has some work to do but the return of Halifax and, now, BT Business shows what the agency’s made of. Other agencies will be keeping a nervous eye on their retail and supermarket accounts too.