Ajaz Ahmed’s Studio.One snatches Coca-Cola Christmas from WPP

Revenge is sweet they say, some add that it’s best eaten cold. Ajaz Ahmed’s new outfit Studio.One has reportedly pipped WPP’s Open X to Coca-Cola’s prized 2026 Christmas campaign despite Open X supposedly enjoying possession of the entire Coke business (except media, of which more later.)

Ahmed (above) was the founder of AKQA, the digital agency that more or less rewrote the rule book for highly creative digital and which enjoyed a long and profitable relationship with WPP in the Sir Martin Sorrell era after he bought it for £300m. Things didn’t go so well when Mark Read took over, reaching crisis point when he merged AKQA with Grey, a truly bizarre shotgun marriage amid a series of them. Ahmed left among with a number of key executives although AKQA continues.

Bespoke agencies with supposedly exclusive relationships with big clients are catnip for some holding companies but tend not to last. WPP has had a succession of them over the years. Coke, to be charitable, seems to have deliberately built some elasticity into Open X but when you then award North American media to Publicis (as it has) and the Christmas campaign to what is in effect a breakaway then the elastic is being stretched a pretty long way. Just last week WPP’s Ogilvy announced that it had won Diet Coke in a pitch against Uncommon and Mother. No mean feat but should you need to jump through these hoops in such a client/agency relationship?

As for Ahmed and Studio.One one of the marketing world’s most successful and truly creative entrepreneurs is off and running.