• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, September 3, 2015

Insurance giant MetLife has appointed Argonaut as its new creative agency.

The selection follows an agency review that kicked off in March. MDC Partners’ CP+B was the incumbent but opted not to defend. Crispin won the business back in 2010.

MetLife spent $90 million on ads in the U.S. last year, according to Kantar Media. Global spending wasn't immediately available.

San Francisco-based Argonaut will serve as the company’s global agency of record with responsibility for delivering creative work in the U.S. and partnering with relevant agencies around the world to ensure MetLife presents a “single, unified brand in all of the markets where the company does business,” the client stated.

The agency will develop a new brand campaign as well as executions that are specific to MetLife’s businesses.

“Argonaut is a big ideas agency that understands how to get underneath the complexity of large companies, find the soul of the brand and express it in a meaningful and un-ignorable way,” said Esther Lee, who joined MetLife as Global Chief Marketing Officer just a couple of months before launching the review.

“They also invest the time and intellect to really understand the underlying mechanics of our business, which is crucial to bringing about business-shifting execution.”

Added Rick Condos, Chief Creative Officer at Argonaut:  “MetLife is an iconic brand with an amazing story to tell. While the company is nearly 150 years old, they are constantly innovating to help improve people’s lives.”

WPP's MEC continues to handle media buying chores (not covered by this review) for MetLife.