Woolies further in-housing; decouples creative and production after Hogarth partnership
Woolworths has officially partnered with WPP’s production house Hogarth, after an initial deal was reported by Mumbrella last week.
Hogarth has now been appointed as the agency of record for production of omnichannel content across social, digital, print, and audio content as the retailer has decoupled creative and production. M&C Saatchi remains the creative agency of record for Woolworths.
Woolies said the move was in order to meet demand
It said it made the move to decouple the services to meet “the insatiable appetite for content”, in-housing a number of services to “support scale and agility in storytelling”.
Last Monday, Mumbrella reported WPP had been asked by Coles to withdraw from its search for a bespoke agency model, after identifying a conflict between the holdco and its competitor, Woolworths. This was initially reported as production deals with subsidiary brands Big W and Dan Murphy’s, with a further deal with Woolworths precluding it from working with Coles on the integrated solution.
Woolworths said Hogarth was chosen following a three-stage RFP, concluding last month, as head of branded content at the supermarket giant, Keshnee Kemp said it came as a result of continually looking for new ways to meet customers’ need for trusted inspiration and relevant information in the “most convenient formats at the right time for them”.
“Bringing a number of creative capabilities in-house enables us to build capability and create data and insight-driven content that meets the needs of our customers at pace, whatever platform that might be on,” said Kemp. “We’re excited to collaborate with Hogarth as we continue the evolution of Today’s Fresh Food People.”
Hogarth’s Ricketts
CEO of Hogarth in Australia and New Zealand, Justin Ricketts said, “We are excited to partner with Woolworths to help design and deliver a smarter and technology-enabled content studio solution.”
“A solution that is designed to integrate with the evolving strategic and creative capability that Woolworths are continuing to build in-house. It’s a partnership that leverages our unique blend of creativity, production and innovation to ensure that we can remain right on the edge of Woolworths current and future content needs.”
“We could not be more excited to partner with Woolworths – an established and future-focused client with such aligned company values.”
The move, as suggested by Ricketts signals a further shift in-house for Woolworths, as suggested by industry sources. Woolworths already hosts all of its marketing capabilities under one roof in its Surrey Hills ‘Innovation Hub’, alongside its retail media business, Cartology.
It also follows a wider trend from brands further decoupling creative and production, as well as in-housing capabilities, as covered by Mumbrella last month. This followed the report that Suncorp shifted all of its production duties to Hogarth.
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Calum Jaspan was news editor at Mumbrella, based in Melbourne. He was also the producer and host of the Mumbrellacast. He left Mumbrella in May 2023.
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This is all getting a bit sad for our industry. Imagine paying a top restaurant with some great chefs to come up with the menu for your wedding, then getting the local kebab shop to smash out the food at a discount price.
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Nice one JR, they’re in great hands. Interesting framing of the story Mumbrella, no mention of News Corp’s Commercial Content Division losing this business. We had this account at SUDDENLY, lots of really good people did great work on this over a long period of time. I hope they are all ok, and if they’ve lost their jobs, they find something even more special.
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