9944: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners & McCann.

Adweek reported Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and McCann have created a joint agency to handle the Chevrolet account. It’s bad enough that Omnicom manages to keep accounts under the global umbrella via Corporate Cultural Collusion, but this move shows the holding company will conspire with any White agency to seize billings. The new enterprise is called Commonwealth—which probably means that everyone with common skin color can expect to share the wealth.

Goodby and McCann Form New Agency to Handle Chevy in Global Creative Consolidation

Commonwealth is a 50/50 joint venture

By Noreen O’Leary

Agencies at two rival holding companies have become partners in a new company, Commonwealth, formed to work on Chevrolet’s global account. Omnicom’s Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, and Interpublic’s McCann Erickson Worldwide, N.Y., have signed on to the 50/50 joint venture after a creative review to consolidate the global business for the General Motors brand.

In the review launched last autumn, GM roster shops Omnicom, Interpublic, Publicis Groupe and Cheil Worldwide put forth proposals to the auto marketer.

Chevrolet, GM’s largest brand, previously worked with 70 global agencies. The creation of the new Detroit-based Commonwealth agency follows the recent selection of Carat as GM’s agency for media planning and buying.

“These agency consolidations are expected to create about $2 billion in savings over the next five years, with a portion used to take advantage of key global marketing opportunities and strengthen the focus on our global Chevrolet brand, and a portion hitting the bottom line,” GM global cmo Joel Ewanick said in a statement.

GS&P has been since 2010 the lead creative agency on Chevrolet in the U.S.—the brand’s largest market—and is behind the “Chevy Runs Deep” strategy. McCann Worldwide has overseen the brand in many global markets including Mexico, Canada, Brazil, India, Japan, China and Latin America (Brazil and China are just behind the U.S. as Chevy’s largest markets). Commonwealth will now handle creative in most global regions except for China, India and Uzbekistan, where marketing efforts will continue to be handled by agencies that have been working on the brand in those countries.

Commonwealth will be managed by an eight-person global advisory board, with assignments handled through global hubs in Detroit, Milan, Mumbai and Sao Paulo. The agency’s board includes GS&P co-founder Jeff Goodby who is Commonwealth’s creative chairman; Linus Karlsson, McCann’s chairman, chief creative officer of N.Y. and London; Washington Olivetto, chairman at WMcCann Brazil and CCO McCann Worldgroup Latin America; and Prasoon Joshi, president, McCann Worldgroup South Asia.

9713: GM Moves From Bailout To Bullshit.

Advertising Age reported on an event that has ties to the recent MultiCultClassics rant spotlighting the Chevrolet Route 66 crowdsourcing contest. One gripe about the Chevy promotion involved the hypocrisy of a corporation taking advantage of desperate people in a rough economy—despite having begged for a federal bailout to remain in business. Now General Motors announced consolidating its $3 billion media and planning duties with a firm based in the U.K. The U.S. saves GM’s ass from financial ruin, and the company responds by taking its business overseas. Brilliant. It seems like the automaker spends more time producing lies than lemons.

Ewanick on GM Media Review: ‘Should Have Done This Many Years Ago’

Quality as Well as Efficiency Drove Decision

By Stephen Williams

General Motors’ Joel Ewanick insists that it wasn’t only money but quality that drove his decision to place GM’s $3 billion global media-buying and -planning account with Aegis’ Carat agency.

“We scrutinized the presentations” during the review process, which began months ago, said Mr. Ewanick, GM’s global chief marketing officer. “I really want to compliment Carat . I went back and forth on this in the past nine weeks. At the end of the day, it was definitely about finding efficiencies, but at the same time we wanted to raise the quality.

“We saw ways to grow with Carat , and we’re willing to establish a new culture,” Mr. Ewanick said. “We probably should have done this many years ago, and that became painfully clear during the presentations.” The consolidation reduces the number to one from 50. Still, he said, “it’s going to take a couple of years for this to seed in.”

The other shoe in the agency review, which formally began last August and involved Chevrolet creative globally, will not drop for several weeks, Mr. Ewanick said. “The creative side is even more complicated than the media,” he said. As of now, Goodby Silverstein & Partners handles North American creative duties for Chevrolet.

Mr. Ewanick said his attention for the immediate future is focused on ad buys for the Super Bowl. He said that this past Sunday he decided to air a 30-second version of a contest-winning, consumer-generated Camaro commercial called “Happy Grads.” It ran during that night’s NFC Championship game on Fox.

The company plans five spots for next week’s game. “It’s almost like running a political campaign,” Mr. Ewanick said.

9710: Chevrolet Route 66 Is A Bad Trip.

Chevrolet Route 66 is one of those crowdsourcing promotions whereby people submit commercial concepts for prizes and the chance to see their big idea play during the Super Bowl. The tired formula actually ran out of gas years ago, yet lazy advertisers continue to ride with it annually.

The Chevy contest is obscene for a host of reasons.

First, the car company opened the field to everyone, including independent directors and filmmakers. This allowed D- and F-level production houses to essentially expel fecal matter spec work.

Second, Chevy presented cash prizes starting at $1,000 and topping at $25,000. Um, the average cost to create a television spot is over $300,000. It’s a safe bet that the typical Chevy commercial shoot spends more than $1,000 just for craft services.

Third, while the winning commercial is OK, does anyone believe Chevy’s lead advertising agency, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, couldn’t come up with something much, much better?

Finally, it’s appalling that Chevy would take advantage of the desperation fueled by a lousy economy—especially when the automaker needed a federal bailout to avoid complete financial collapse.