Sonos had worked with MDC Partners' Anomaly on creative and strategy since 2016, though one person close to the business said that relationship ended in late 2019. Still, Sonos is one less client for Anomaly, which lost its Panera Bread business to Goodby Silverstein & Partners in March, and only last week its Petco account to Droga5 without a review.
Anomaly Founding Partners Jason DeLand and Carl Johnson, executive chairman, declined comment.
For Sonos, Anomaly helped launch its voice-activated smart speaker, Sonos One, into the market with a 2017 campaign, created in partnership with agency Cornerstone, that leveraged music, names and tracks of more than 20 top recording artists to show how it can be a mood shifter. In a lively holiday spot that same year, Anomaly built on the launch campaign by showing how the Sonos One speaker can entice anyone—kids and grandparents alike—to get up and bust some moves.
Still, Sonos has crafted several of its campaigns in-house over the past few years, including its February 2018 stunt in New York's Grand Central Station trolling Apple's smart speaker, the HomePod; and, one month earlier when that device launched, the company quietly reminded consumers that it too has a voice-activated smart speaker option in the Sonos One.
According to COMvergence estimates, Sonos spent a total of $4 million on measured media in the U.S. in 2019, half of which was spent on digital.
For its most recent fiscal fourth quarter, Sonos reported a 16% rise in revenue to $339.8 million, as quarantined consumers spent more time listening to music at home in the pandemic.
