Mcdonald’s splits with Leo Burnett, consolidates with Omnicom

After four months of review, McDonald’s has decided to end their 35-year relationship with Leo Burnett. The global fast food chain has chosen Omnicom over Publicis Groupe’s Leo Burnett to handle it U.S. creative account.

Deborah Wahl, chief marketing officer of McDonald’s USA, said that Omnicom will be McDonald’s new partner for all the national marketing projects starting January 1, 2017. Further, she stated that Omnicom has built a “new agency of the future” with McDonald’s that has digital and data at heart allowing them to be “customer obsessed” in everything that they do.

Following the win, Omnicom will launch a separate unit based in Chicago that will make the marketing initiatives of McDonald’s. The still un-named unit will be in coordination with DDB and other Omnicom media agencies including Annalect, sparks & honey, Critical Mass, and others.

In an interview with DDB North America CEO Wendy Clark, she said pitching for one of the most iconic brands was a hard-fought win. Their main goals were to “create, operationalize, and deliver” what was briefed to them. Hence, DDB created a customized agency for the brand which constitutes all the best and brightest talents they have across all the agencies of Omnicom.

The decision of McDonald’s really reverberated in the business community, especially in advertising industry, and ended one of the most closely watched reviews in the past years. The spokesperson of Leo Burnett said that the news was very disappointing for them; however, they are proud and thankful for the chance given by McDonald’s to work with them for 35 years. Still, Leo Burnett wishes McDonald’s continued success .Two of their compelling ad campaigns for McDonald’s was “All Day Breakfast” and “I’m Lovin’ it”. Wahl mentioned in an interview that there’s still uncertainty on whether to retain the famous tag line or not, but for now it will still be used.

Earlier this year, there have been rumors that during the review, which included WWP, Omnicom, and Publicis Groupe, that WWP dropped out the race for Mcdonald’s account. Some sources say that it was because the multimillion food chain was asking the companies to work at cost. But Wahl and WPP refuted the issue and declined to elaborate on it.

Regardless of the controversies McDonald’s has faced with regard to retaining market sales, the giant fast food chain still remains as one of the biggest single advertisers in the United States.