MillerCoors Consolidates Its U.S. Retail Agency Assignment With Arc

MillerCoors has appointed Chicago-based Arc, a subsidiary of Publicis Communications agency Leo Burnett, as lead agency for all of its U.S. retail business. The brewing giant confirmed the shift Wednesday. The primary incumbent was Omnicom’s Integer although Arc had previously handled a small portion of the client’s shopper marketing account.

MillerCoors also confirmed that two roster shops, Walton Isaacson and Ten35 are being shifted to project work.

The Arc win was particularly gratifying for the agency and more than offsets the client’s September decision to part ways with Burnett on its Miller Highlife creative account.

Arc was and remains the incumbent shopper marketing agency on Highlife and will handle retail duties for MillerCoors’ other brands marketed in the U.S., including the Miller and Coors brands, Blue Moon, Grolsch, Foster’s and others.

A memo from MillerCoors CMO David Kroll to senior staff and other key personnel outlined the reasons behind the Arc decision and other agency moves: 

advertisement

advertisement

“We have been working diligently over the past 15 months to ensure we have the strongest possible roster of marketing agencies in place to help us achieve our “growth by 2019” imperative. It’s also important that we consolidate our agency resources when possible to drive more efficient use of our resources. 

For both of those reasons, we’ve decided to consolidate all of our retail marketing support under Arc Worldwide, effective immediately. Arc brings deep expertise in delivering creative, strategically focused retail solutions and has been a valued partner on our business since 2005. We look forward to strengthening our relationship with the Arc team.” 

Kroll added, “Also in the interest of creating greater efficiency within our agency roster, we will shift both Walton Isaacson and Ten35 (formerly Commonground) to project work based on specific business needs. 

These changes move us another step closer to our objective of providing the marketing leadership that the MillerCoors system expects of us and that the American beer industry needs. We have exciting news coming yet this year, and look forward to getting 2017 off to a strong start.”

Arthur Sadoun, CEO, Publicis Communications described the Arc appointment as “great news” in an internal memo obtained by MediaPost. He gave a shout-out to Arc Worldwide CEO Bob Raidt and Leo Burnett Worldwide CEO Rich Stoddart and the Arc team involved for making the appointment happen.

“Not only does this win reinforce the strategic importance Arc has for Publicis Communications,” wrote Sadoun, “it’s a clear sign that Shopper will play a central role for our clients as we work with them to build the marketing model of the future.” 

Next story loading loading..