Diesel drops Anomaly after 10 months, handing global creative account to Publicis Italia
Diesel has selected Publicis Italia as its new global marketing agency less than a year after handing the business to Anomaly Amsterdam.
The brand's advertising strategy has taken different directions over the years, including a 2016 campaign centred around memes
The Drum understands that there was no competitive pitch process.
Publicis Italia, which is led by Publicis Worldwide's global chief creative officer Bruno Bertelli, was appointed after the agency worked with the brand on a project at the start of 2017.
The fashion house appointed Anomaly Amsterdam as its global agency of record just 10 months ago, rekindling a relationship that had started six years earlier when the creative shop had worked on the brand's 'Be Stupid' campaign.
Since then, Anomaly's work for Diesel has been increasingly purpose-led while retaining its tongue-in-cheek approach to spreading its message, with the pair working on a campaign in February that urged people to 'Make Love Not Walls'.
However, first major global campaign from Diesel and Publicis will launch in September to coincide with the launch of the brand's winter collection and looks set to mark a departure from its outlandish style.
Publicis' Bertelli hinted that agency's work for the brand could perhaps focus on its hertiage. He said: “When people think of Diesel, the first thing that comes to mind, besides the quality of the products, is undoubtedly a powerful communication that has always been ahead of time.
"It’s a creativity inspired by the visionary personality of its founder, Renzo Rosso, who from the beginning imagined his brand as a synonym of courage and unconventionality. Diesel is an iconic brand, that goes against the ordinary, and for this I am really proud my agency has been chosen as its partner."
Diesel artistic director, Nicola Formichetti, said he hoped the agency shake-up would help foster a different outlook from the brand side.
"In a seemingly limitless world that is smartphone dominant, we are trapped into conformity more than we could ever imagine," she said.
"Together with Publicis, we will enjoy discovering a different point of view about things without taking ourselves too seriously."
The Drum has reached out to Anomaly for comment, at the time of writing the agency had yet to respond.
According to Kantar Media Diesel spent $5.7m on media in the US alone in 2015, while the brand is coy about releasing revenue figures it revealed in the same year the business generates around $1.8bn in sales each year.