Unilever moves Pot Noodle from Lucky Generals to Adam&EveDDB as its agency cull continues
Unilever has handed Pot Noodle's creative account to Adam&EveDDB, ending its relationship with Lucky Generals as Unilever continues to consolidate the number of agencies on its roster.
Lucky Generals' best-known work for the brand was its 'You Can Make It' campaign
The Drum understands that Adam&Eve, which already holds Unilever's Lipton, Walls and Marmite accounts, was handed the business without a pitch and that the appointment was initiated by Unilever as part of an ongoing consolidation drive which has been titled 'Project Galapagos' internally.
Lucky Generals first won the business in 2014, replacing Mother as the snack brand's creative agency of record. At the time it was estimated to be worth around £3.5m, but it's understood that spend has slumped to the £500,000 mark.
Lucky Generals' first work for the brand was its well-received 2015 'You Can Make It' campaign – which told the story of a teen preparing to make his boxing debut as a ring boy complete with green satin shorts. Since then, there's been very little in the way of big-budget above-the-line activity from the brand.
Unilever and both agencies were approached for comment but hadn't issued a response at the time of publishing.
Unilever's move to further consolidate the amount of agencies on its roster follows on from a pledge made in 2017 by its chief marketing officer Keith Weed to slash the number of agencies it worked with (which then stood at 3000) in half.
It reached this target last year, and in addition with other efficiencies like bringing some marketing elements in-house, the FMCG brand delivered savings to the tune of $2bn in 2017 – $250m of which was invested back into media buying and in-store advertising.
In June, Unilever announced that alongside working with traditional agencies and its in-house arm U-Studio, it was also experimenting with a new creative agency model that brought together different agencies from the same holding group into a single team.
The approach was being tested with two holding companies to produce creative for four brands.
Weed suggested it could be a solution to brand fragmentation and mixed messaging, an issue he attributed to being nothing more than "a reflection of agency design".