• Adweek, Wednesday, August 29, 2007 12 PM

Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos is the new lead agency for Chili's restaurants. The shop will handle both creative and media for Chili's, which dumped Omnicom Group's GSD&M in April. Other contenders in the review were not disclosed, but a management shuffle at the restaurant chain, coupled with a same-store sales slump, drove the split with GSD&M, insiders say. GSD&M had worked for Chili's for about 20 years.

The win adds to a hot new-business streak for Hill Holliday that in the past year has added assignments from AOL, Novartis, Procter & Gamble, Toys R Us and Verizon Wireless to its roster. At the same time, GSD&M has been swirling the drain, losing big accounts like AT&T and Wal-Mart, along with Chili's, which spent $110 million on U.S. ads last year, according to Nielsen.

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