Agency Spy

Oohhhh… people hate McCann-Erickson don’t they? Across the blogosphere, the news that McCann just lost the Buick account to Leo Burnett Co. has folks in a fit. Even Sun Times columnist, Lewis Lazare has something nasty to say:

McCann Erickson didn’t help Buick with the recent introduction of an ad campaign with the horrendously stupid tag line “Drive Beautiful.”

But, here’s our fav pull quote:

McCann Erickson is the perfect example of a fat, lazy agency that failed to keep pace with the changing nature of the client’s business. See Full Article

Whatever though. McCann did just pick up the Smith Barney (35 million) and Harley Davidson Europe accounts.

Meanwhile, Chicago-based advertising agency Leo Burnett Co., will take over two new accounts from GM. Worth $130 million, Burnett has taken the Buick account from McCann Erickson Worldwide and the $285 million GMC business from Lowe Lintas & Partners Worldwide. Burnett was in need of replacing their lost Cadillac account, which ended a 71-year partnership. Modernista, a shop to look out for out of Boston who handled Hummer well, now handles Cadillac.

Mark LaNeve, GM’s vice president of sales service and marketing is on the record as saying (as they all do) that he wasn’t unhappy with McCann Erickson or Lowe, but he did mention he wanted a change for the brand. Less Tiger Woods. More cars. From today’s Chicago Tribune article:

“Tiger’s a great asset, but I just have a problem using a celebrity as a core spokesman for a brand,” LaNeve said. “We want to get back to focusing on Buick’s attributes. We thought we could deliver that more clearly without Tiger in the middle of it.”

Don’t worry about the Tiger. He’s now going to shill GM’s OnStar communications system from here on out.