Can I fries with that — digitally?
April 7, 2008
We have a winner — Avenue A – Razorfish.
The prize? A brand new digital McJob!
Yes… that would be Mickey Dee’s UK digital account for the next three years or so (so they say that is — as they also say, given the fickleness of clients these days, nothing but death & taxes is assured.)
They battled AKQA to the proverbial death and emerged victorious for the account that is expected to be worth about $10-15 million yearly — big bucks in the digital sense (ATL CEOs probably spend more than that on their expense accounts.)
It will include all the online advertising, the development of a new web presence, and the potential development of digital kiosks to replace a few cashiers and make things go faster as you can ponder if you want the chocolate shake or tub of Coke to go along with that Egg McMuffin or Filet-o-fish.
The fast-food giant did not have an incumbent digital agency for its consolidated business although Avenue A – Razorfish has handled work for the restaurant chain in other markets. Leo Burnett will continue to handle McDonald’s above-the-line advertising account and The Marketing Store will handle its below-the-line account.
In the year ended 30 September 2007, McDonald’s spent £34 million on advertising in the UK with online accounting for £3.6 million, according to Nielsen Media Research. This digital spend is expected to almost double over the next year as the company plans to invest some £400 million into making its European businesses more locally relevant.
At the start of the year the fast food giant reported net profit of £640 million for the last quarter in 2007, fuelled by double digit growth in Europe.
(ed note: and this begins today’s int’l digest — because there is fuck all happening stateside these days it seems. We need a good old fraud to be exposed — OK…significant fraud that is… none of this everyday shit that agencies pull on an hourly basis — or someone dig up Leo Burnett and/or David Ogilvy and see what their take on the state of current ad industry is.)
