Clients aren’t so worried about account conflict these days Omnicom CEO John Wren remarked loftily (and optimistically) when promoting his takeover of IPG.
Someone should tell Uncommon Creative Studio which finds itself prevented for pitching for Asda, having just won Ocado. Fair enough on Asda’s part as Ocado is also a grocery retailer, albeit online only. But it also has a tie-up with M&S Food. Asda has even had a pop at M&S products in some of its past ads, which won’t have helped friendly relations.
Uncommon pitching for Asda would have been diverting to say the least: The agencies actually pitching include incumbent Havas, now the proud owner of a majority of Uncommon. Would the two have gone to head? Also in the frame are Lucky Generals and AMV BBDO, a previous holder of the account until a car crash of a summer campaign a few years back.
Asda, in fact has been round the agency houses since departing long-time incumbent Publicis. Asda departed Publicis for Saatchi & Saatchi in 2009; in 2013 it went to VCCP (which seems an obvious home for a supermarket account) then reverted to Saatchi before AMV and current incumbent Havas.
Asda has had more than its fair share of travails since succumbing to a highly-leveraged £6.8bn takeover by TDR Capital and petrol station magnates the Issa brothers. It’s still looking for a permanent CEO, although former boss Alan Leighton has taken over as executive chair. Which may give the pitching agencies some pause, Leighton is a no-nonsense manager with a similar taste in advertising during the Publicis era.
It’s hard to see quite what Havas, now trading independently from Vivendi, has done wrong although Michael Bublé didn’t play that well for Christmas 2023 (although doubtless in receipt of a very large cheque.) AMV will be grateful for another go and Lucky Generals, one of the go-to agencies for medium-sized accounts, deserves a crack at a big one.
Shame that we won’t see Uncommon up against Havas though.
