Burger King Integrates Marketing Activities @ Interpublic Agencies.

Burger King Corporation (BKC) announced it will integrate a large part of its marketing and communications efforts with agencies owned by The Interpublic Group (IPG). This integration will begin a new marketing approach for the BURGER KING(R) brand throughout North America. Communications activities across the marketing disciplines will be coordinated at IPG by vice chairman David Bell.

“We are pleased to forge this unique partnership with a select group of agencies at Interpublic,” said Chris Clouser, executive vice president and chief global marketing officer, Burger King Corporation. “This new way of marketing will make it easier for us to build on the momentum we have been experiencing for the Burger King brand over the last five months since we relaunched the brand.

“The complexity of marketing today demands a new type of partnership model. BKC and IPG understand this and have come up with a new, focused way of delivering a more integrated, collaborative and efficient relationship across agencies and services. We have handpicked the Interpublic companies that can provide BKC with the resources that best fit our needs, coordinated by a single leader working across the IPG holdings.

“We have now put into place a system that allows our agencies to work together seamlessly on our behalf and will give us access, as needed, to additional IPG companies. Through this consolidation, we will take advantage of the unique IPG agency assets and knit together a customized, integrated network of services.”

Interpublic has current BKC assignments at Draft Worldwide, Campbell-Mithun, Weber Shandwick and Octagon. These will remain unchanged. Two other IPG agencies, Deutsch, Inc. and Media First International, will significantly expand their roles with BKC. Deutsch will assume field marketing and field creative duties in the United States and for English language materials in Canada. North America media buying will be consolidated at Media First/Initiative with access to broader Interpublic media resources in the United States and Canada, notably for media research and negotiation. Non-Interpublic agencies remaining with assignments at BKC are: the independent company Amoeba (overall brand and product creative partner), BCOM 3’s Bromley Group (Hispanic) and WPP’s UniWorld (African American agency), WPP’s VML (Internet and loyalty) and independent Equity Marketing (promotions and premiums). Len Fink, principal of Amoeba, will continue as the chairman of the Burger King Creative Council. As a result of this consolidation, BKC will transfer assignments from MediaVest and D’Arcy.

“The new team at BKC is transforming the company through new products, improved operations and innovative marketing,” said Interpublic Chairman and CEO John Dooner. “With their franchisee partners, Burger King Corporation has begun a remarkable turnaround. By organizing our companies to better work together in a new way at the highest level, we will make many valuable contributions and BKC’s agency teams will raise the bar for all of Burger King Corporation’s marketing efforts.”