Droga5 and Toyota part company – Dentsu set to open shop in Australia early 2011 to join ad roster
CB/SMH joint exclusive – Only three months after joining Toyota’s coveted roster, alongside incumbents Saatchi & Saatchi, Mojo and Oddfellows, Droga5 Sydney has parted ways with the car giant in the wake of plans for Dentsu to officially enter the Australian marketplace.
Dentsu will take over duties on Yaris, although it’s unclear what other areas of the car maker’s marketing they will be involved with.
[Interestingly, CB hears Dentsu Canada – which ousted Saatchi’s from the Lexus business in Canada – recently came up against Saatchi & Saatchi, Sydney in a secret pitch for a slice of the Australian Lexus business, which Saatchi’s retained.]
Up to now, Dentsu has been the car maker’s lead agency in Japan and the lead agency for Lexus in Canada. However, as early as January 2011, the Japanese agency may be officially opening an office in Sydney.
Whether it will be a start-up operation or a takeover of an Australian agency remains unclear at this stage. If it’s the latter, perhaps Oddfellows might be their way in? [CB hears they’ve already had talks but the stumbling block appears to be Oddfellows’ reluctance to surrender more than 50% of their ownership].
David Nobay (left), Droga5’s creative chairman told CB: “This is frustrating, obviously, as several of us here have a long and good relationship with Toyota, but we’ve also been around long enough to recognize that these things happen. For me, it’s a case of being in the right place, at the wrong time. Toyota’s a formidable brand, at an exciting, challenging time in their life, and I wish them all the best, genuinely.”
Droga5’s split with Toyota comes just four days after news of the sudden resignation of divisional manager national marketing Peter Webster, with no reason given for his departure. As previously reported, CB believes there was a major confrontation between Webster and Toyota Australia management late last week over an [unspecified] issue that led to his departure.
Could the political decision to appoint Dentsu – which has had mixed success in markets outside Japan – have been that issue? For example, Dentsu bought CDP, once the UK’s most glamorous and influential ad agency, in the mid 90s and eventually killed off the CDP name in 2008 when it was rebranded Dentsu London.
The last time Dentsu had a presence in Australia was when it had ownership of BAM in the 90s, which eventually became part of Bcom3. [In early 2000, the merger of the Leo Burnett and DMB&B groups–followed by a significant minority investment from Dentsu–created Bcom3]. In Australia, BAM and Pure D’Arcy was merged to form D’Arcy which folded into Leo Burnett after Leo parent Publicis took over Bcom3.
17 Comments
Let me break it to you. Toyota has no inentions of handing over any work besides retail to Dentsu. Toyota will not risk it’s brand with an agency that doesn’t even know the local market. Full stop.
8:25 – You’re sadly misinformed.
When Dentsu expanded to the US, they created a separate agency division, DCA, now Dentsu America, run by experienced US creatives and producers, account management continuing to flow through the head office in Japan for the most part, which is where the client resides as well of course.
Doubtless, Dentsu will be doing the same in Australia, most probably with talent poached from the agencies who have the most experience with the brand locally.
Why else would Nobby and Droga5 leave their only automotive account to go in search of another if he felt that Dentsu was only going to take on the retail side of the business. Look out Publicis. The writing is on the wall.
Dents who?
BWM is the re-incarnation of BAM, so…
Gesundheit!
I’m sure Dentsu will do like they do in most other markets and start to work on major Japanese brands amongst others. It’s good see another big player in town.
CumminsDentsu….
You might have just picked it 9:52
Onya Nobby. Stay out of that clusterfuck.
Hey Nobby you’re great
Aren’t Dentsu part of Y&R? Patts don’t have a car account, do they?
Lion Nathan is owned by Kirin, which is Japanese
If I’m not mistaken, Dentsu is the largest agency in the world
I think all bloggers need to remember that both Toyota and Dentsu areJapapese.
Had to happen really.
Toyota is Japanese? I’m shocked!
This has been a long time in the making.
I was in serious talks with Dentsu re selling FNL to them in 2005 – we even did a joint presentation to Toyota Aust. and I spent several days in the Tokyo office with the late David Baker (ex SSB) who had been their ‘man in Oz’ for many years.
The stumbling block back then was that Dentsu weren’t prepared to commit (to buying into FNL) without a guaranteed piece of Toyota business – but by the same token, Toyota weren’t going to carve off a chunk of business until Dentsu actually had an office here.
The other thing to note is that as the world’s largest single ad agency, as opposed to Group, Dentsu Japan handles a lot of clients who are with other agencies here … possibly because, until now at least, there hasn’t been a Dentsu option.
Anyone feeling nervous?
Always loved the name effen ‘ell. Best acronym I’ve heard, back when advertising had a sense of hooma 🙂