Gwyn Jones has unexpectedly stepped down as CEO of Bartle Bogle Hegarty, two years after Publicis Groupe took full control of the London-based agency.

Jones, who has spent his entire 27-year career at BBH in a series of successively larger roles, will leave at the end of the year, giving way to Neil Munn, the shop's global chief operating officer and a former marketing leader at Unilever.

Munn will become just the fourth CEO in the agency's 32-year history and joins the (thin) ranks of former client-side leaders who have run global creative agencies. The most notable example of that is Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts, who had never worked at an ad agency when he took control of Saatchi in 1997. 

"Neil is perfect casting for what is now needed from the group CEO," said BBH Group chairman Simon Sherwood, adding that BBH is now a mature business owned by a holding company. "He has proper marketing and comms pedigree, is highly commercial with a deep understanding of client organizations and brands and has a truly global perspective. I know that his leadership style will be very effective for the business we now are." 

Neill Munn

Jones took the reins of BBH in July 2012, when Publicis Groupe shifted from 49 percent minority investor in BBH to full owner. At the time, he succeeded Sherwood, who had held the top job for four years and became chairman. (Like Munn, Jones and Sherwood had been COO before assuming the top job.) 

Jones joined BBH as a graduate trainee in 1987 and ran the U.K. and U.S. operations before joining the global management ranks. As CEO, he focused on finding the right leaders in New York, maintaining BBH's high creative standards worldwide and branching out into new ventures, including this summer's launch of a new production company with Scooter Braun's SB Projects.

"BBH has the best culture going; it isn't easy to leave," Jones said. "But 27 years is a long time and variety is the spice of life. So, when I've taken a break, I have some other investments and opportunities that I want to pursue and maybe spend a little less time on planes."

Munn joined BBH 10 years ago, after serving as global marketing director on Unilever's Axe, a brand that BBH creates ads for in several markets, including the U.S. Among other things, at BBH Munn helped launch Zag, a unit for creating new brands. He had served as COO for two years.

Once Munn becomes CEO, the COO responsibilities will be absorbed by CFO David Pearce and Niall Hadden, global head of talent. As such, the agency will no longer have a COO.

Ogilvy & Mather's Calle Sjöenell is heading back to his native Sweden to become chief creative officer at Lowe Brindfors.

At his new agency, Sjöenell will succeed executive creative director Rickard Villard, who has left to pursue personal projects. Villard had held the top creative role for two years and had worked at Lowe since 2004.

Sjöenell spent more than two years at Ogilvy in New York, where he was CCO for the office. In that period, he worked for marketers such as Coca-Cola, Ikea and Kimberly-Clark.

At Lowe Brindfors in Stockholm, he'll partner with CEO Annette Gardo to lead an office of about 80 staffers, including a creative department of 15. Top accounts there include Unilever (Magnum), BMW, Mini Cooper and Swedback. Sjöenell, who'll also join the agency's global creative council, is expected to start in the fall.

Before Ogilvy, Sjöenell held senior creative positions at Bartle Bogle Hegarty in New York and Fallon in Minneapolis. His return to Sweden comes after eight years in the U.S.

The KFC toasted burrito is all about getting more from your lunch break. Like, say, meeting, courting and marrying the love of your life.

In a new spot from BBH London, the chain's fried chicken wrap helps nudge a geeky workaday guy toward finding the woman of his dreams. What happens next is likely best interpreted as a brief fantasy about how much can happen in a mere hour.

Directed by Rattling Stick's Sara Dunlop, the spot is reminiscent of her earlier bit of excellent and brief storytelling, Vodafone's "The Wait." It helps that the two spots also share a similar soundtrack, with KFC using "Where I Fell in Love" from doo-wop group the Capris and Vodafone featuring a cover of Dusty Springfield's "Wishin' and Hopin'."  

Setting aside the question of exactly how a chicken burrito sets such a scenario into motion, the spot deserves credit for cramming more rom-com into 60 seconds than Hollywood usually can in 90 minutes. 500 Days of Summer? Just watch this instead.



CREDITS
Client: KFC
Chief Marketing Officer: David Timm
Marketing Manager: Grant MacPhearson
Brand Manager: Jocelyn Bynoe
Agency: Bartle Bogle Hegarty
Creative Director: Hamish Pinnell
Creatives: Charlene Chandasekaran, Dan Morris
TV Producer: Jodie Sibson
Team Director: Leo Sloley
Team Manager: Helen Campbell-Borton
Production Company: Rattling Stick
Director: Sara Dunlop
Producer: Stuart Bentham
Director of Photography: Nanu Segal
Stylist: Nick Foley-Oates
Editor: Art Jones, Work Post
Postproduction: The Mill
Visual Effects Producer: Rachel Stones
Colorist: James Bamford
Matte Painting: Jiyoung Lee, Can Y Sanalan
2-D Lead Artist: Chris Scott

Big data can inform creativity but is no substitute for the human ingenuity.

To illustrate that point during an Advertising Week panel discussion today, Crispin Porter + Bogusky's Chuck Porter quoted everyone from Disney's Michael Eisner ("In any new medium, a great story is the killer app") and DDB's Bill Bernbach ("The memorable never came from a formula") to Albert Einstein ("Imagination is more important than knowledge").

Of the last quote, Porter said, "This is on the wall of my office. I think it ought to be on the wall of everybody's office."

Bartle Bogle Hegarty's John Hegarty used ads—from his agency, of course—to show how creative minds interpret data. In one case, the agency found in research that Johnnie Walker drinkers are successful but concluded that success, for them, is a journey, not a destination. That insight gave rise to the brand's long-running, "Keep Walking" campaign.

"Data stimulates insights," Hegarty said, simply.

Similarly, Ogilvy & Mather worldwide creative chief Tham Khai Meng cited Unilever research from 2004 that showed only 2 percent of the women the company polled considered themselves beautiful. That finding inspired one of Ogilvy's most heralded efforts in recent years: the "Campaign for Real Beauty" for Unilever's Dove, which continues today.

Porter, Hegarty and Khai Meng also agreed that data is nothing new and need not be feared. But again, it's what you do with it that counts. As Khai Meng said, in closing, "Don't worry. We will still be the masters of the universe."

Publicis Groupe can breathe a huge sigh of relief.

The holding company's agencies were the most exposed in Samsung's global marketing services review, yet beat the typically poor odds of incumbents. Specifically, Leo Burnett bested shops such as Grey to retain its role as global agency network, and Starcom remains the global shop for media planning and buying, according to sources. The other finalists for the media business were WPP Group's MEC and Interpublic Group's BPN, said sources.

In addition, another Publicis Groupe agency, Rosetta, will join Samsung's roster and take on a chunk of the global digital business, along with others, including Sid Lee and Interpublic's R/GA, which already works on the brand, sources said.

Finally, Samsung has added two "boutique" creative agencies to create global campaigns, as proposed in the company's initial request for proposals. Sources identified those shops as Publicis Groupe's Bartle Bogle Hegarty and Wieden + Kennedy, an independent.

All told, Samsung spends an estimated $2 billion on media annually. So, by any estimation, these wins are big.

In December, Samsung hired SP Kim as its new chief marketing officer. He was previously, president, CEO of Samsung Electronics Europe and was charged with reviewing all of the company’s marketing and media relationships.

The Seoul, Korea-based Samsung could not immediately be reached. The search consultancy that managed the process, R3, also could not be reached.

Infiniti, in a long-running review that lived up to its name, has selected Crispin Porter + Bogusky to lead its global creative efforts, the automaker has confirmed. 

Crispin, a unit of MDC Partners, succeeds Omnicom Group's TBWA, which had handled the business since 1998.

Account revenue is estimated at $30 million and in term of media, the brand spends around $450 million annually, according to Infiniti's initial request for proposals.

In its final stages, the review became a battle among relatively small agencies, some of which have scant or no presence outside the U.S. For example, one contender, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, operates only in America and would have opened offices overseas to service the account.

Likewise, Crispin partnered with recently acquired sister shop The House to help meet Infiniti’s geographical needs. Crispin also plans to open a full-service office in Shanghai and an office for planners and account management staffers in Hong Kong, according to CEO Andrew Keller. The House, in turn, will offer "ground support" in other regions, Keller added.

In a statement reflecting on the selection, Infiniti vp of global marketing Vincent Gillet cited Crispin's "strength in leveraging multiple communications channels," adding, "We look forward to their fresh thinking as we continue growing Infiniti’s stature.”    

Sources previously identified the other finalists as Anomaly and Bartle Bogle Hegarty. Infiniti executives briefed Anomaly but the shop exited before final presentations last month, sources said. And after those presentations, the execs narrowed their focus to Crispin and Goodby.

The win puts Crispin back into the car category—after its past years on Mini Cooper and Volkswagen—and is among the biggest in the agency's history, up there with the likes of Burger King and Microsoft.

"We couldn't be more fired up," Keller told Adweek. "We love working on car brands and we know the hard parts, fun parts and all that. You just sort of take all that and you've got to find joy in it. And the car industry has just evolved, grown and changed in all those years and we're fired up to be part of what it is now and to be in this premium segment."

Even before Infiniti, the luxury division of Nissan, hired Roth Observatory International to manage its search in the spring, the car company had talked to agencies interested in its business. In fact, sources said that those conversations began late last year.

The stakes are high for Infiniti, which has ambitious growth plans but whose U.S. sales lag far behind brands like BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Lexus. Through the first nine months of 2015, Infiniti ranked seventh among luxury marks in the U.S., with unit sales of just 84,880, according to Autodata Corp. In the same period, market leader BMW sold 236,591 vehicles, slightly ahead of Mercedes at 233,210 units, and Lexus at 220,683 units, Autodata reported.

In its request for proposal, Infiniti said its goal was to be a "provocateur that owns the future of the premium car category by winning the hearts of young-minded premium consumers [through] seductive styling, attitude, exhilarating performance, emotive design and intuitive technology." Well, now the company has a new agency to take up that charge.

(This story has been updated.)

Diageo’s $40 million global creative review of its marquee Johnnie Walker brand has caught many by surprise, given the sales growth the brand has enjoyed under longtime lead agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty and its "Keep Walking" campaign.

In fact, agency rivals and a search consultant—who typically are cynical and critical of agencies and their work—can’t fathom why the world’s No. 1 scotch whisky is looking around. In addition to BBH, sources identified the finalists as BBDO, Anomaly, Ogilvy & Mather and Wieden + Kennedy.

Observers see "Keep Walking" as a gold standard in spirits advertising and a driver of Johnnie Walker’s growth. When the campaign began in 2000, brand sales represented 13 percent of the global market; at the end of 2013, that figure exceeded 20 percent, according to the IWSR.

"It’s one of the world’s greatest brands. And you know what? BBH made it one of the world’s greatest brands," said a leader at one rival shop, adding, "I don’t like seeing agencies that really built something getting dusted off."

Russel Wohlwerth of External View Consulting Group is equally puzzled by the search. "You never know what goes on behind closed doors," he said. "But on its face, it seems strange they would place the account in review, given the success of the product and the success of the campaign."

Perhaps Diageo is just doing due diligence after 15 years with BBH. After all, even global brand director Guy Escolme admitted that the relationship has been "hugely successful." Nevertheless, Escolme added that "the time is right to invited selected agencies, including BBH to look at how we take the brand forward into the future."

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.

"This is obviously disappointing news but we will keep walking," said BBH co-founder Nigel Bogle.

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.

Unilever's existing roster shops on Axe remain in place—including Bartle Bogle Hegarty, Lowe Ponce and R/GA—but newcomer 72andSunny is taking on a significant role.

72andSunny's Amsterdam, The Netherlands, office will focus on redefining the brand's global strategic positioning, according to sources. As such, its work will become a blueprint of sorts on how the brand markets itself around the world.

Historically, that role has been held by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, which has worked on Axe (and Lynx, as it's called in the U.K.) since 1995. So, while Unilever stresses that BBH remains a global roster shop, new kid 72andSunny is expected to play a leading global role going forward. Global media spending on the brand is estimated at more than $100 million a year.

The hire came after a pitch that involved BBH, R/GA, Lowe, 180 and 72andSunny, according to sources. Unilever hadn't worked with either 72andSunny or 180 before.

In a statement about the selection, Pablo Gazzera, an svp on Axe at Unilever, cited 72andSunny's "proven track record," adding, "We rely on a balance of long-term agency relationships and fresh insight on specific projects to get the best results for Axe."

Carlo Cavallone, executive creative director at 72andSunny, in turn, described Axe as a "legendary brand which has consistently impacted culture. As men and manliness change and progress, Axe will be at the forefront of the next evolution."

Axe becomes one of the largest accounts at the Amsterdam agency, which also works for  Google, Samsung and Smirnoff. Its full-time headcount is around 80.

News of 72andSunny's emergence on Axe comes at an up and down time at BBH. Three weeks ago, the shop's London office landed Tesco's big U.K. creative account, with annually media spending of $170 million. But in December, the agency lost its global creative responsibilities on Diageo's Johnnie Walker, which spends about $40 million in media a year. That brand had been at the agency for 15 years.

Corinna Falusi is rising to New York chief creative officer at Ogilvy & Mather, filling a vacancy left by last summer's exit of Calle Sjöenell.

Falusi, an executive creative director who has led creative on brands like Coca-Cola, Fanta, Ikea, Spotify and, most recently, Coke Zero, is the first major leadership change by Chris Garbutt, the CCO at Ogilvy & Mather East, who assumed his cross-disciplinary job a year ago. Garbutt previously had been CCO of Ogilvy France, where he played a pivotal role in creating global campaigns for Coca-Cola, and came to the U.S. to help raise the agency's creative profile here.

Falusi will report to Garbutt and partner closely with New York president Adam Tucker, according to the agency.

Falusi began her career in Europe, doing stints at Jung von Matt, Germany, and StawberryFrog, in Amsterdam before moving to that agency's New York office where she led integrated efforts on Frito-Lay brands. She also contributed to global campaigns for Heineken and New Balance.

Sjöenell spent more than two years at Ogilvy, joining from Bartle Bogle Hegarty. Last February, when Ogilvy appointed Garbutt, the agency insisted the role and influence of Sjöenell would not change. Six months later he said he was leaving.

This time SapientNitro won the prize. The Publicis Groupe agency has been named the digital lead for British Airways, business previously handled by OgilvyOne.

Last year SapientNitro emerged as a review finalist when the U.K. flagship airline retained long-time agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty after a six-month global creative search. In the current review, BBH also competed for the digital business, along with DigitasLBi and We Are Social. 

The global digital assignment includes key British Airways markets like the U.S., U.K., China, India and Europe. The airline's digital spending couldn't immediately be determined, but the brand spends around $100 million annually on its marketing communications.

"We are confident that SapientNitro will offer us great ideas, insight, the ability to apply strategy practically, a strong reputation in the industry and a good fit with the British Airways brand," Sara Dunham, British Airways' head of marketing, retail and direct, said in a statement.

In November, Publicis announced a $3.7 billion all-cash offer for SapientNitro, with the deal closing on February 6 of this year.

The Cannes Lions festival has today named the nine jurors responsible for awarding its inaugural Glass Lion, or Lion for Change. Launched with a focus on gender, the new award will celebrate work that "breaks through unconscious gender bias" and "shatters stereotypical portrayals of men and women." 

Cindy Gallop, founder of IfWeRanTheWorld and former chief of Bartle Bogle Hegarty New York, serves as jury president for the new award. 

"I want every single creative in every country around the world to desperately want to win the Glass Lion," said Gallop in a statement. "The work that wins this award represents The New Creativity: the gold standard for creative and socio-cultural change in our industry."

Gallop is joined by Marcello Serpa, partner and co-president of the board for AlmapBBDO in Brazil; Catherine Emprin, managing director of BETC in France; Tista Sen, national cd and svp of JWT in India; Laura Jordan Bambach, creative partner of Mr. President in the U.K.; Nick Bailey, CEO and ecd of Isobar in the U.K.; Susan Credle, CCO of Leo Burnett in Chicago; Gail Heimann, president of Weber Shandwick in New York; Jennifer Siebel Newsom, founder and CEO of The Representation Project; and Elizabeth Nyamayaro, senior advisor to Under Secretary-General of UN Women and head of the @HeForShe Campaign. 

"It's no secret that one gender and one viewpoint is over-represented in our industry, which means inevitably a certain viewpoint is over-represented," said Bailey in a statement. "The Glass Lion seeks to redress that by recognizing work that holds a mirror up to the world as it really is, rather than just as a minority of people see it. 

"That's why it's particularly exciting to see not just a truly international mix in the jury, but also a mix of viewpoints from both within and from outside our industry." 

While the award will initially spotlight gender, festival organizers said it could highlight other cultural issues down the line. 

It has been a busy week for Sony PlayStation.

On Monday, the brand announced a raft of news at Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, including a new look at The Last Guardian, a long-awaited game that's coming out next year. Also at the conference, Sony unveiled a 60-second spot touting its new PlayStation Vue streaming service. (It was Adweek's Ad of the Day.) And now, the company is shifting its digital direct-marketing business to DigitasLBi after a review, according to sources.

The assignment encompasses Sony PlayStation.com and the brand's portfolio of games with a focus on customer relationship management and social media marketing. The other finalists included the incumbent, Havas Worldwide, sources said. Account revenue is estimated at $4 million.

It's a big win for the San Francisco office of DigitasLBi, which joins a roster of PlayStation agencies that includes lead creative agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty, media shop Carat and Johannes Leonardo. The office, which also works for Taco Bell and eBay, employs about 80 staffers.

DigitasLBi referred calls to San Diego-based Sony Computer Entertainment of America, which declined to comment. But sources said SCEA had informed contenders of its decision.