Word is getting around that Revlon will likely give most of its global creative assignment to Taxi and Young & Rubicam (both WPP agencies) following a review.
The work, formerly handled in-house, includes the global Revlon business and digital and social engagement work for Mitchum deodorant. It doesn’t include the Almay brand.
Revlon spent $265.2 million globally on advertising last year, according to its financial reports. Revlon got $132 million in U.S. measured media support last year, according to Kantar Media, out of $169 million overall for the company’s brands. Spending on the core brand was up 21% in the U.S., according to Kantar, and the company reported it hiked ad spending overall globally in the first quarter.
Spokespeople or executives for Y&R, Taxi and Revlon declined to comment or didn’t return calls for comment.
The move comes nine months after former Coca-Cola Co. executive Julia Goldin joined Revlon as chief marketing officer. A Revlon spokeswoman said Goldin was traveling and declined to comment on the agency assignments.
It also appears to break a nine-month losing streak for Y&R, which has lost business since September from Bacardi, Dell, 7-Up, MetLife, Office Depot and Sears. And it gives Taxi, which got a drubbing on Twitter in 2008 over digital and print ads for Johnson & Johnson’s Motrin seen by some as mocking baby-wearing moms, a new shot at social media for Mitchum.
Revlon has been a notoriously tough client to work for, according to people familiar with the matter, who say that through a host of CEOs and chief marketers over the years, chairman Ron Perelman has had a frequent tendency to intervene in marketing matters.
The Montreal-born Taxi was acquired by WPP last year and placed in its Y&R Brands family of agencies.
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