McCann Melbourne set to land media account for AGL as agency pursues full service model
McCann Melbourne has landed a full-service client with utility company AGL set to move its $15.7m media account to McCann.
The decision sees the account move from GroupM agency Maxus without a pitch, with McCann’s sister agency UM understood to be doing the backend media buying for the account.
“AGL Energy (AGL) will move its media account from Maxus,” Mark Brownfield, AGL general manager marketing & retail customers.
“Our customers’ needs and media consumption habits are rapidly changing and we felt it was time for a fresh set of eyes to look at our business. We have enjoyed working with the Maxus team over a number of years and thank them for their hard work on our account.
“We have identified a new partner which will be announced shortly. We will not go through a pitch process.”
The company declined to confirm the account move to McCann, saying only that it would make a final statement on where it was moving to at a later date.
Mumbrella understands the decision to move from Maxus comes after a recent shake up in the AGL executive and also its marketing department.
McCann, UM and Maxus all declined to comment when approached this morning.
The win for McCann comes after the creative agency announced earlier this year that it would be expanding into media with what it described as a “integrated” service offering for many of its existing clients, such as AGL.
“We haven’t set out to have a separate media offering, it is more about having an integrated media offering,” said Ash Farr CEO of McCann in an interview with Mumbrella earlier in the year. “It depends upon the opportunities and how they present themselves.
“But certainly we have a number of clients that are excited about having an agency that understands their business from end to end and stop that kind of nonsense on who you brief first and what comes first and we go back to the scenario that the best thinking comes first.”
Nielsen estimates the main media spend for AGL in the year to June 2015 at $15.7m.
Nic Christensen
Update: The original version of this article said it was McCann Melbourne’s “first” full-service client – however the agency has since told Mumbrella it already has a number of full-service clients on its books.
Tough few weeks for Maxus. But they’ve got plenty of smart people there, so hopefully retain all of them.
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Well done to Ash and the team, top mngt team at McCann with vision and integrity,
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Bundling is back!
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