• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, July 20, 2014

You know how you sometimes become infatuated with a person when you first see them and you think you've met your soul mate? And then they open their mouth and speak. And then their personality begins to grate. And then you can't stand to be in the same room with them. It would seem this is exactly what happened between McGarryBowen and Pizza Hut which just dumped the agency and handed the account to Deutsch. The pair split after just 10 months together, a very short courtship in brand/agency terms. McGarryBowen started dating Pizza Hut after a review in September. Either things went very sour very quickly or Pizza Hut is fickle in the relationship department. Though having been with The Martin Agency from 2008 until 2013, it would seem to be the former. First and second quarter sales slumps would appear to corroborate that assertion. Or it could be the fact that Taco Bell CEO Greg Creed succeeded David Novak as CEO of Yum Brands in January. Pizza Hut is a Yum Brands brand. Taco Bell is a Yum Brands brand. Taco Bell is a Deutsch client. Creed loved the work Deutsch did for Taco Bell. You do the math.

Palo Alto-based healthcare tech company Theranos has appointed a new chief creative director, former TBWA\Chiat Day Executive Creative Director Patrick O'Neill. Of the hire, Founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes said: "Patrick has a track record of creating successful and memorable platforms for brands that connect with people throughout the world in profound and tangible ways. As people everywhere join us as we make timely and affordable diagnostic information accessible as a basic human right, Patrick will partner with me and our teams to transform the accessibility of health services in a whole new way." Whoa. Is this a healthcare company or a cult?

Anheuser-Bush InBev -- although it has had an in-house media agency, Busch Media Group, since the early 1990's and is, seemingly, happy with the work Starcom has done for the brand -- is launching a media agency review. A joint agency briefing session will be held July 22 and pitches will be heard August 14-15. It's no surprise things are getting shaken up a bit as the brand brought in a new U.S. VP of Marketing, Jorn Socquet. Socquet, who previously ran marketing in Canada since 2011, joined the U.S. group on January.

Wouldn't it be fun if the agency pitch for the Tic Tac creative business were simply a Tic Tac Toe throw down between the contenders? You've got to admit, that would be a lot faster and a hell of a lot less expensive than a full-blown agency pitch, right? Why go through all the time and expense just to select a new creative agency? After all, winning at Tic Tac Toe certainly does require a degree of creativity. Who cares how pretty an ad agency's ads are. What really matters is winning. And if an agency can win at Tic Tac Toe, there's no reason they can't win at selling Tic Tacs to people. Oh come on, it could be that simple, right? Why must we over complicate so many things in our lives when a good game of Tic Tac Toe will suffice just fine?

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