Heart& Science Unit
AT&T has recently consolidated their advertising business with Omnicom. This move followed a closed creative and media review that pitted the holding company against their rival WPP. As per the reports, BPDO will be retaining the creative business and the lately formed Heart & Science unit will be the media agency of record.
The review came about two years after the acquiring of DirecTV by AT&T. BBDO had been the serving agency of AT&T from 2007, and Grey has been serving DirecTV as the agency of record. AT&T has a long relation with Omnicom.
“We’ve completed our comprehensive advertising agency review that combines creative, media, data and analytics under one entity. We believe this integrated, best-in-class approach is the future for brands wanting breakthrough marketing innovation, quality and efficiency at scale,” AT&T senior executive vice president and global marketing officer, Lori Lee said.
“It was a thorough and thoughtful evaluation, and a tough decision because both firms presented outstanding ideas and both have done terrific work for us in the past. We thank them both for their efforts. We have selected Omnicom via its BBDO and Hearts & Science units to be AT&T’s integrated creative and media agency,” she added.
This is an important victory for Omnicom network. “By combining the resources of Hearts & Science and BBDO, we are extremely pleased to have won the business and look forward to continue working with AT&T to build an integrated creative, media, digital data and analytics team that can deliver the best in advertising and marketing ideas, execution and results,” an Omnicom spokesperson said.
AT&T Schemes
“This is an opportunity like none other. AT&T is a unique, premier brand that is constantly innovating for its customers and we’re privileged to expand our partnership with them. We look forward to developing breakthrough work with AT&T around their unique integrated capabilities to serve consumers and businesses,” he added.
AT&T has thanked MEC and Grey in a statement for their work on the business. “We expect a smooth transition of the work to Omnicom will happen over the coming weeks. Like Omnicom, WPP is a world-class group and we appreciate their hard work and nine-year partnership,” Lee commented.
