CB EXCLUSIVE: After more than a decade Samsung parts ways with Leo Burnett; hands Australian creative and media business to CHE Proximity
November 30 2019, 10:53 am | | 25 Comments
After more than a decade of award-winning campaigns, Campaign Brief can reveal that Samsung Australia has parted ways with Leo Burnett, Sydney, handing its creative and media business to CHE Proximity after a pitch that included the incumbents Leo Burnett and Starcom, plus M&C Saatchi and Bohemia.
The massive account (by far the biggest pitch this year) also means incumbent agencies like R/GA and We Are Social lose out to CHE Proximity.
Campaign Brief has reached out to Leo Burnett and CHE Proximity for comment, but don’t expect replies. Sources say Samsung will not be making an official announcement.
25 Comments
Sad day in the history of Leo Burnett Sydney.
Really has been a fall from grace.
BrainBand, Pocket Patrol, Sdrive, Anthem, LifeLive, Celebrity Tantrum, to name a few campaigns, have all been internationally recognised but somehow it seems Leo’s lost their creative drive and spark recently.
I hope their people are looked after.
I hope CHEP try hire some of their most talented.
I wish Leo’s the best.
And big congrats to CHEP.
Well said.
Why would they do that. Mediocrity to come.
CHEP are all show, no substance.
Clemenger Group, not CHEP
Have they taken media too? Heard otherwise….
Leo worked with Samsung for 14 years however had to pitch for every single project and were never retained.
That’s pretty hard to do.
That’s even harder to do and do great work.
Even harder on a brutal client like Samsung.
Hats off.
We’re able to comment on this.
Looking forward to Samsung’s data driven pasta sauce blender.
Samsung Galaxy sause 12
Very hard to do great work when budgets are constantly cut and timings are mad. Hats off to the team at Leo’s for putting up with it for so long.
The pitch process for this business was ridiculously protracted and unnecessarily gruelling ,sucking the lifeblood out of the competing agencies.
I lived through it vicariously because my partner worked on it.
They sound like horrible people.
But well done CHE.
Hopefully they will behave with more respect and better manners when they are on board as a client.
I believe every client has the right to pitch if they are not happy but I’m sick of the unnecessary gruelling pitch process killing agencies. We collectively as an industry need to stop this abusive shit and refuse to do it. Clients when they behave this way don’t care what it does to the people and culture of a place. They absolutely love seeing how far agencies will bend for them. It’s dirty politics. Why we put up with it is beyond me.
It’s not only Samsung but sadly some people at Samsung are ex agency so they should know better.
If Samsung are anything like their Korean automotive marketing counterparts,CHEP are in for a miserable time.
I know from bitter experience.
Take their money guys but don’t give them any love.
Wow you complain about “gruelling” pitches to retain accounts then “collectively” turn around and charge a loyal client $15k for an eDM. Entitlement much?
Loyal client? Where?
Yes, an edm probably costs $15K because people – like the back end developer, front end developer, art director, designer and copywriter aka the people who make the edm an edm and not just a flimsy brief on an A4 paper that needs to be deciphered by 3 account service staff before it makes sense – need to get paid.
Sorry, but your loyalty doesn’t pay for people’s food, or their mortgages, or their children’s daycare. Your money does. The fact that you see this as entitlement rather than a legal right within this country says everything that’s wrong with marketers.
Hear hear!!!!
Exploding sauce phone
$15k for a custom written, designed and developed EDM (inc project management) sounds about right at this level – so long as the quality of the output reflected that investment.
Mumma be making fake phone calls for new recipes in fake taste.
Siri for president.
They are the most erratic, schizophrenic client I have ever worked on. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing in that place. Explains why they have two presidents working there.
And their phones are crap.
Hey client.
Instead of wasting everyone’s time and money (including yours) with pitches that go on for months, how about you
1) do some agency research (I hear there’s a thing called ‘google’ that’s good for that)
2)choose the ones that pique your interest
3)chat to them to see if you have good ‘chemistry’, then award the business to the one you like the most based on all your ‘metrics’.
Every agency you would have dealt with on this pitch would have a massive body of work already, from which you could have made an informed judgement.
And then it’s all about culture and bean counters.
But it’s cool.
Keep making us monkey’s dance.
That’s what this is all about really, isn’t it?
Well done Clems, and commiserations Leos.
Disciples of a dying industry dissing one of the world’s most successful companies. No wonder they don’t work well together.
If it’s such a “dying industry” then why so desperate to put all these agencies through the ringer to find a new one? For such a “successful” company they need a lot of help.
CHEP were always going to win, the others were there to make the tender compliant. Warning to CHEP – you may have to make sacrifices to the gods to get paid, then provide evidence that you made the sacrifices or no $$