School Reports 2018
[Extended edition]
McCann London

McCann London

Year in review

Lots of people enjoy a nip of whisky at Christmas, but few as much as McCann London, which capped off a solid year by winning the global account for Pernod Ricard brand Chivas Regal from nine-year incumbent Havas London.

It was one of 11 wins for the agency, which grew its business with RB by adding Nurofen to its existing Dettol account, widening its Subway business to include Europe and picking up Bing without a pitch, on the strength of other activity for Microsoft. The latter included McCann’s most acclaimed work in recent years, 2015’s "Survival billboard" for Xbox.

That was a hard act to follow, but the agency did so admirably with December 2016’s "Zombie Christmas", which reinvented the billboard, and bagged a pair of Cannes Lions. Last November, McCann brought its lateral thinking to the video-game tutorial by getting Real Madrid players to recreate their moves in Fifa 18, also using Xbox’s social feeds to teach players button combos in real time, during live games.

There was strong creativity for an Alzheimer’s Society campaign that took Britain’s divisions by the horns, and an all-female table football game, created for Mastercard at the Women’s Champions League final.

The agency bolstered its top team in June by bringing in former Saatchi & Saatchi managing partner Sheryl Marjoram as managing director, and promoting head of strategy Theo Izzard-Brown to chief strategy officer. If McCann can push its lengthy list of clients to be creatively bold, more great work could lie ahead.

Scores

Business performance and accounts