• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, October 27, 2015

American Airlines has selected MDC Parnters’ Crispin Porter + Bogusky and GroupM’s Mediacom as its new creative and media agencies, respectively. The appointments, confirmed by the airline today, came after a formal review.

The assignments are global. 

The incumbent agency was TM, part of Interpublic’s McCann Worldgroup. TM had serviced the account since the early 1980s and did not defend the account. Instead, Martin Agency, also part of IPG, pitched the business. 

American Airlines spent about $30 million on ads last year, according to Kantar Media. Spending will likely increase going forward as the airline has just absorbed U.S. Airways. How much more remains to be seen. U.S. Airways has spent very little on ads in the last year and a half given the pending merger. Last year it spent just $615,000, per Kantar. 

"From the very start, CP+B and MediaCom showed a clear understanding of American's assets and opportunities, and it all starts with our 100,000 employees," said Fernand Fernandez, American's vice president - global marketing. "We want to capture the enthusiasm and passion our employees have for the future of the airline and deliver that message to our customers with a genuine and unique campaign. We think our employees and our customers will be proud of how CP+B and MediaCom work with us to present American's brand in the coming years." 

The airline noted that it began the agency review with pitch consultancy AAR in July of this year. It is part of a broader objective to evaluate all major partners to more effectively compete and deliver on its vision “to restore American to the greatest airline in the world.”  

The merger with U.S. Airways took more than two years to complete. American  recently completed the integration of its reservations system and is investing more than $2 billion in improvements to its product and customer experience. That’s in addition to an ongoing fleet renewal, which the airline claims will give American the youngest fleet of its network competitors.