Nestlé is finding new agency partners for the brands that are leaving McCann Erickson L.A. The Swiss global marketer is assigning U.S. marketing duties for Coffee-Mate to roster shop Publicis and is considering that agency along with Ogilvy & Mather, another of its core agencies, for the marketer's Nesquik brand.
Both agencies declined to comment, referring calls to Nestlé, which has yet to confirm.
In 2011, Nestlé spent $26.4 million in U.S. advertising support for Nesquik and $25.6 million for Coffee-Mate, according to Nielsen. (Those amounts do not include spending for digital and business-to-business advertising.) McCann continues to work for those two products in 30 countries outside the states.
Both brands had been handled out of McCann’s Southern California office, whose president Cathy Saidiner resigned in March and has since joined L.A. digital agency Blitz. Saidiner’s departure is not necessarily the catalyst for McCann’s dismissal on the accounts—observers say Nestlé is very deliberate in making these changes and the agency would have been warned and given the chance to save the accounts.
The future of McCann L.A.’s office is still undetermined. The agency’s remaining accounts are LifeLock and IHOP.