12320: Johnnie Walker Runs Away.

Adweek reported Johnnie Walker walked away from a 15-year relationship with Bartle Bogle Hegarty and settled on Anomaly as its new White advertising agency. Then again, Anomaly insists it’s not an advertising agency. Okay, but the place is predominately White. Plus, the stuff produced by the firm looks, feels, tastes, sounds and smells like the same old shit that spews from the butthole of a typical ad agency—and in Anomaly’s case, a mediocre one to boot. For the non-ad agency to win a shootout involving BBH, BBDO, Ogilvy and Wieden + Kennedy hardly indicates that Anomaly rocks; rather, the scenario underscores how the industry has become a landfill of generic shops where big ideas are routinely trumped by cronyism and Corporate Cultural Collusion. Hey, Anomaly resembles a White advertising agency more and more every day.

After 15 Years With BBH, Johnnie Walker Picks a New Agency

Anomaly wins Diageo’s global marquee brand

By Noreen O’Leary

Diageo has awarded Johnnie Walker, its global marquee creative account, to Anomaly after a pitch that included 15-year incumbent Bartle Bogle Hegarty as well as BBDO, Ogilvy & Mather and Wieden + Kennedy.

Agencies met this week with the client in Amsterdam for final meetings on the Scotch brand, which spent $40 million in measured media in 2013.

The review initially came as a surprise to some industry observers who saw BBH’s “Keep Walking” strategy as one of the best in spirits marketing. When the campaign broke in 2000, brand sales represented 13 percent of the global market; at the end of 2013, that figure exceeded 20 percent, according to IWSR.

The decision follows the launch of Johnnie Walker’s new BBH spot, “The Next Step,” using a year-end scenario that looks forward, rather than back, with a man walking through a dreamlike vision of 2015.

Nonetheless, the brand decided it was time to move on and determined the best way forward was with Anomaly.

“We were hugely impressed by the far-reaching creative vision which Anomaly proposed for our brand and with the strategic thinking that lies behind its development,” Guy Escolme, Johnnie Walker global brand director said in a statement.