• by Karl Greenberg , March 18, 2013

It's not much surprise as the buzz has been around on this: American Honda Motor Co., Inc. has made some very big agency changes. MediaVest will be the media agency serving both brands, with RPA will keep creative for the Honda automobile brand while RP& is being replaced by Mullen for Acura.

This is a new approach for the company, which has kept just about all practices under RPA's roof for years. The company says the point of it is to garner greater creativity, greater efficiency and long-term strategic planning.  Muse Communications and Orci retain the multicultural assignments. They will all report directly to American Honda.

"We are creating a new and highly collaborative path forward that will yield outstanding creative and enable us to focus more of our marketing investment on communicating with our customers," said Michael Accavitti, WP of National Marketing Operations, in a statement.  "We are confident that our new team of agencies will create dynamic marketing campaigns that connect and engage consumers with our products and our brands, while achieving an even higher level of efficiency and effectiveness."

The company says it is also bringing agency elements under Honda's physical corporate roof in Torrance, Calif., "Where agency personnel can better serve the needs of each brand by collaborating together and with the Honda and Acura teams." 

The company says Mullen and MediaVest will be opening or expanding dedicated offices in Southern California. 

The company says MediaVest's role as the separate -- dedicated -- media agency will help in terms of bringing a more specialized media mix practice into play.  "Getting smarter about how we communicate was a critical goal of this process and even with the same level of investment we expect to realize more efficient and targeted media plans, which will increase the amount of money we spend on reaching our customers," said Accavitti.