Calls to Optimedia executives and to BMW were not returned by press time.
About a month ago, GSD&M won the creative business from BMW after a review among KB+P of New York, The Martin Agency of Richmond, Va., and Anomaly of New York. It has been at Fallon, Minneapolis, which had resigned the account after a decade of work.
GSD&M, however, is also getting some prospective bad news, albeit somewhat expected. Client DreamWorks decision to sell its live action theatrical unit to Paramount Pictures last week, as well as striking a distribution deal for its animated movies with Paramount, is expected to send its $200 million media account to Paramount shop Mediaedge:cia.
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"It'll probably be rolled into Paramount's agency, Mediaedge:cia," said one veteran West Coast theatrical media executive familiar with the situation.
A GSD&M spokesman would not comment, and referred phone calls to the client. DreamWorks executives didn't return phone calls by press time.
A Paramount Pictures spokeswoman would only say, "It's way too early yet to talk about that."
Paramount's media agency is WPP Group's Mediaedge:cia, which took over from Publicis Groupe's MediaVest Worldwide earlier last year. Paramount spent $389 million in U.S. media in 2004, according to TNS Media Intelligence--down 7 percent versus 2003. DreamWorks spent $318 million in total U.S. media spending--double the total of $155.5 million in 2003, according to TNS Media Intelligence.
Depending on the yearly schedule, DreamWorks animated movies comprise 40 to 60 percent of its total yearly media budgets for such titles as "Shrek," "Chicken Run," and "Madagascar," in terms of theatrical and home video entertainment media spending, according to media executives. DreamWorks also gets anywhere from $20 million to $40 million per animated movie from its promotional partners--which in the past have been major companies, such as Burger King.