Advertising Age reported Petsmart got smart, splitting with White advertising agency GSD&M after less than seven months in favor of transferring the marketing duties to in-house resources. The move sorta indicates the client decided GSD&M was not better than nothing. At least now the Austin-based agency has more time to focus on their pet project: Annie the Chicken Queen for Popeyes.
GSD&M, Petsmart Part Ways After Less Than Seven Months
Retailer Brings Marketing Back In-House Following Acquisition by Private Equity Group
By Maureen Morrison
Just seven months after tapping Omnicom’s GSD&M as its agency, Petsmart is bringing the bulk of its advertising in-house.
The move comes after Petsmart was bought by a consortium led by BC Partners in December. That deal became final in mid-March. Two weeks later, Phil Bowman, exec VP-customer experience, a role that oversees marketing, left the company. He has since been replaced by Eran Cohen, whose hire was announced as part of a new leadership team in the wake of the private-equity acquisition.
Bringing its creative in-house isn’t new for the retailer. Prior to hiring GSD&M, the company had fielded much of its marketing in-house in recent years.
“While we appreciate the efforts of GSD&M, we’ve decided not to continue our partnership with them,” said Michelle Friedman, a spokeswoman at Petsmart. “We will resume management of all creative work with our in-house team.”
Said GSD&M in a statement: “We want to thank our client partners for the opportunity to create bold work in a true collaboration. We are proud of the work we created together and wish everyone at Petsmart the best during their transition.”
The agency in February launched a campaign called “Petsmart partners in pethood,” which included spots directed by Christopher Guest.
Petsmart spent about $113 million in U.S. measured media in 2014, according to Kantar Media, up from nearly $105 million in 2013.
The loss of Petsmart comes after the agency recently parted ways with Marshalls. Ace Hardware, which the agency has also handled, also went into review. In the past year, GSD&M has picked up the Hampton hotel business (August), the Northwestern Mutual account (July) and media planning and buying, along with select creative projects for Chipotle (last May.)
Contributing: Ashley Rodriguez
This is like a case study in the economic costs of an all-white ad agency, Omnicom. Are you listening, NY City Comptroller's office? I hope so.
ReplyDeleteBecause GSD&M's white dude team chose a director and creator, Christopher Guest, who's only popular with other white dudes. The end result was an expensive flop of a campaign that cost millions of dollars, debuted during the Oscar$, and still only earned PetSmart a few thousand hits online.
GSD&M was culturally tone deaf, focused only on white dudes and white audiences like themselves, cost Petsmart millions of bucks, and cost GSD&M the account.
So Omnicom shareholders got shafted just like the NY City Comptroller was concerned they would, all because the holding company refuses to admit they have an ethnic problem.