Land Rover Shifts Creative Account to In-House Agency Spark44

Land Rover is shifting its global strategic and creative ad accounts to Spark44, which handles its sibling brand Jaguar. Spark44 is jointly owned by its management and Jaguar Land Rover. Young & Rubicam had handled creative duties, while Ogilvy & Mather handled digital user experience and web design and Wunderman handled CRM, Land Rover said. "We are, of course, sad to see Jaguar Land Rover leave our agencies after 20 years of partnership," said Y&R and Wunderman, units of WPP Group, in a statement. "But we wish them well as they take the assignments in-house, and we will work with them to make it a seamless transition. Most of all, we are tremendously proud of having produced terrific advertising and marketing communications over many years and around the world that have helped define and drive the Land Rover brand successfully." Ogilvy declined to comment. Land Rover is switching to Spark44 as the brand prepares to expand two families of vehicles -- Discovery and Defender. Both vehicle ranges will be priced above the Range Rover lineup. "Extending our innovative Spark44 agency model to the Land Rover brand will maximize global marketing effectiveness and efficiency, enhancing consistency of approach and quality worldwide," said Anthony Bradbury, global marketing communications director for Jaguar Land Rover. Spark44 was created in 2011 to give Jaguar a modern image as it prepared to launch new and redesigned vehicles. One of its campaigns for the new F-Type coupe was "British Villains," featuring British actors who play villains in movies. A "Villains" commercial was Jaguar's first Super Bowl ad and debuted during the 2014 game. Spark44 has more than 275 employees and offices in Birmingham in the U.K., Frankfurt, London, Los Angeles, Shanghai and Sydney. Media planning and buying duties remain with Mindshare. The Brooklyn Brothers continue to handle social media content. Diana T. Kurylko is a reporter for Automotive News.

Land Rover Shifts Creative Account to In-House Agency Spark44

Featured Stories