Leo Burnett, Sydney replaces Droga5 as lead agency on giant Woolies business; Tony Phillips departs Coles for chief marketing officer role
Leo Burnett, Sydney – the agency that coined ‘The Fresh Food People’ back in the 80s – has been appointed lead agency on the giant Woolworth’s account, replacing Droga5, who has been lead agency on the business for the last two years.
A senior source at Leo Burnett – which is set to employ up to 40 people to run the account – claims that from May 1 Leo Burnett will be the lead agency, with Droga5 retained for special projects. The move comes as Droga5 is this week busy shooting the latest series of Woolies commercials with Jamie OIiver.
Woolworths has also hired former Coles executive Tony Phillips as chief marketing officer. Phillips (pictured left with One Direction) has enjoyed a successful career in the Australian advertising industry. He was the founder and managing director of AdTown. He was also managing director of George Patterson Melbourne handling clients like Carlton United and National Australia Bank.
He joins Woolworths from Coles where he has spent the previous seven years in the roles of General Manager Marketing Communications, General Manager Sponsorships and Events and General Manager Category Marketing.
The Chief Marketing Officer role is a new operational role at Woolworths and is part of a restructure of the Marketing division.
Jess Gill has been appointed to a new strategic role of Director, Customer Experience.
Jess will be leading the development of Woolworths’ brand strategy, format development including store design & layout, online customer experience and embedding deeper customer insights throughout our business.
Says Woolworths managing director of Australian supermarkets and Petrol Tjeerd Jegen: “We’re very excited to be adding one of Australia’s premier creative agencies to our roster and I believe this addition will help us stay ahead of the pack in what is a very competitive market.
“I’d like to sincerely thank Droga5 for their work over the past two years. The successful ‘More Savings Every Day’ campaigns have shown they were the right choice and now we move into a new era. The addition of Leo Burnett will be a great fit for Woolworths.
“With a new marketing team of Tony and Jess, combined with a new creative agency in the roster in Leo Burnett, I know we will further strengthen our position as Australia’s leading supermarket.”
Says CEO of Leo Burnett Australia Todd Sampson: “Tjeerd, Jess and Tony have huge ambitions for Woolworth’s and it’s now our job to help bring them to life. I can’t wait to get started.”
23 Comments
Great for the management of Leo Burnett.
Bad for their creative department.
Good luck.
That’s really going to fuck Droga… More than half that agency were paid by them, directly or indirectly.
The man responsible for down-down prices are down is moving to Woolies. Oh, shit. No!!!
Congrats but hope they weren’t just chasing the money because creative places always suffer when money minded people try take control. Careful what you wish for Leo’s. Hate to see a creative power swallowed by retail work.
Sincerely wish you the best of luck.
At least not everyone believes or sees the hype. Droga hasn’t done anything breakthrough or worthy of envy for years and if you can’t do something good for retail
what are you doing in advertising…
So sad. That’s a big chunk of Droga5 revenue.
They lost Telstra and only do special projects, plus some other smaller clients. They lost loads of their fantastic team including Justin G, all whilst not doing any decent work.
There won’t be too many ‘yummy face’ at Droga this week.
Yet more proof that big agencies just can’t prosper with these big retail accounts. It sucks the energy out of the agency and eventually spirals them down the slippery slope into redundancies and human suffering. Stick to what your good at people, and let the retail specialists handle this stuff.
Did Coles dude do Down Down or did he just not stand up to Horton’s WHO?
“CB hears the remuneration to D5 from Woolies will well and truly replace the loss three-fold – resulting in more staff employed rather than the retrenchments expected a week ago.” – yes, but Droga would be mad to staff up on standard D5 creatives for this job. They need to get a brief out for someone, anyone, who knows how to do day-to-day retail and has won awards. And that list is very very very short in Australia. If they want to keep the business they have to keep the swan’s legs paddling.
I’m looking forward to seeing a coke machine that allows Coles customers talk to woolies customers from store to store.
Retail world machines – Bridging the gap so we can all be friends when we buy bananas.
I imagine there are two agencies celebrating. Hate to be D5 this week with Droga in town.
Qantas will be next.
this is the ‘break’ that D5 needs to reset and focus more on living up to the NY agencies reputation. they’ll need to work very hard to keep Qantas happy, word inside is that things aren’t that rosey on that front either. i really hope they come out of this in better shape, but no doubt the pressure is on sudeep, nobby and duncan
that recent awful maccas singing dancing ad swung it!
What has Droga actually done?
Seriously, anything of note at all? A bit of VB work maybe, but even that wasn’t super flash.
Been living off their founders name but so far have been all fart and no poo.
Could well be the end if they don’t make some magic happen.Qantas gone within the year and then what?
Let them eat date pudding…
@pressureisreallyon,
I agree, but I also have to ask “what have Leo’s done?’ Perhaps some stuff for a client in another country for the sole purpose of winning awards, and some agency-funded stuff for the alcohol brands on their roster? Is that really how to run a business?
@pressureisreallyon.
You sir make a lot of noise yet you don’t really add anything to the blog with that comment. When I think of all fart and no poo I think of people like you.
Perhaps you should focus on your colon today and see if you can produce anything worthwhile.
I have no idea if it was effective, but I loved the Woolies work.
People are asking “what has Droga done?” – well, I would say they did some pretty interesting work for a boring supermarket. The brand ads were lovely and it made me think Woolies was higher quality and had a strong world view.
“Leo Burnett is set to employ up to 40 people to run the account”
If Woolies have taken the key client, Leo’s may go after some of Mr Horton’s creatives too?
Never before has BigRed looked so hot on a CV…
Unfortunately Droga have chased the money and chosen clients that no amount of advertising could save. VB, QANTAS and Woolworths have all made terrible decisions on a level completely separate from marketing, then blamed Droga for the results.
However with Woolworths it is a surprise, given they’ve been beating Coles in sales and had some record profits in the last six months.
Maybe the relationship was at fault rather than the work.
Droga were always a day closer to getting punted from the day of the appointment. Big retailers need to be run by people who understand the true bastard bully retail mentality. I thought that the work over the past two years was pretty good for what is a much loathed brand.. Seemed to make them seem almost human. I wish Leo’s luck they are going to need it and a whole lot more.