Qantas opts for two independent agencies on three-strong creative agency roster
National airline Qantas has settled on a new roster of advertising agencies with The Monkeys, With Collective and BWM Dentsu all on the list, Mumbrella understands.
Mumbrella revealed last week agencies had been pitching credentials to land a roster place on one of Australia’s most prestigious accounts, after the death of Neil Lawrence who masterminded the last brand campaign and the demise of Droga5 Sydney.
It is understood M&C Saatchi and Special Group were also in contention in the pitch.
Special Group joined the roster earlier this year and produced work for the airline’s business suite, while M&C is understood to have pitched the business despite having Emirates as a global client.
While With Collective has been on the roster for the brand for some time working on a number of projects for the Frequent Flyer part of the brand both The Monkeys and BWM are new to the roster.
Earlier this year Dentsu Aegis acquired 51 per cent of BWM, which boasts REA Group, Simplot and TAB as clients.
It is also another blue chip client added to the roster for independent shop The Monkeys which has been handling the majority of the Telstra brand work recently.
All agencies contacted declined to comment.
It is understood that Qantas will continue to advertise using the tone set by Neil Lawrence under the tagline Feels Like Home.
Earlier this year Qantas’ marketing chief Olivia Wirth said at the Mumbrella Travel Marketing Summit the airline preferred a roster approach.
“There is an obsession about it and I don’t really get it,” Wirth said when asked about its agency partners. “Yes, we work with a lot of agencies and increasingly there are a lot of agencies that are boutique. They are very good at some things and don’t focus on others.
“So yes we work with a lot of agencies from time to time. Neil Lawrence was the right person [for the Feels Like Home campaign]. We worked with him for 12 to 18 months and he was absolutely the right person. He understands Australia.
“So yes there will be a changing roster and I guess that’s life.”
Good luck with that. One of the worst clients in the country, and that is really saying something.
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STW Group has 75 marketing services companies and still can’t keep themselves on the roster of a major brand.
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Be interesting if mumbrella did a bit of digging into their underperformance as a group…
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Indie agencies for the win. Considering there is no benefit to using a holding company networked agency, expect to see more clients go with independent agencies next year.
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Houston I believe is STW owned and they are on the Qantas roster for design.
Although the recent redesign isn’t very good in my opinion.
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@heh heh perhaps Mumbo might run a book on how long each one will last?
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Whybins 12 months. WITH will pick it up from them.
BWM 8 months only, after presenting a script about the great wall of china and rabbits 47 times.
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Love some of the pompous BS that describes this account. Yet at the end of the day 95% of Australian punters are like ‘meh… Whatever”. It’s just advertising.
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@embattled shareholder STW lost a bunch of big clients and didn’t replace them, that’s the story.
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Groucho. Whybins aren’t on the roster. And if you look at the work With have on their site its hard to see them picking up anything except the digital scraps that no one else wants to touch. But I guess it’s a living.
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@heh heh
I’ve worked with With for a couple of years and they are very good at digital scraps as you put it but probably not the best at creative thinking
They are a lot better to work with than Whybins though, and have some very good people there
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