Burger King Enlists DraftWorldwide

Burger King this month will break the first work from its new promotion agency of record, Chicago-based DraftWorldwide.

The QSR giant selected Draft to handle promos and merchandising worldwide in late January after a lengthy review. At the same time, Draft won BK’s international youth and family account in a separate contest. Alcone Marketing Group, Irvine, CA, had handled both.

Alcone and Equity Marketing, Los Angeles, remain agencies of record for premiums manufacturing for the U.S. and abroad, while Alcone also retains some marketing support and administration work.

The Draft-developed promotion breaking this month coincides with new advertising from McCann-Erickson, New York City, and Campbell Mithun, Minneapolis, which, respectively, were awarded BK’s adult general-market and kids advertising accounts earlier in January.

For Draft, the wins bring an estimated $50 million-plus in billings to an already large-scale operation: The agency reported total worldwide billings of $2.7 billion in 1999, when net revenue from promotion assignments hit $239 million. Draft’s size reportedly was a major factor in the review process, which had BK considering several smaller shops (January PROMO) that it ultimately decided might not be big enough to handle the assignment. The final stage came down to Draft and Alcone, according to a BK release.

Draft’s Chicago headquarters will staff the account from within and hire from outside to fill in gaps. Execs expect to find talent locally. “Chicago is the center of the U.S. QSR business,” says Lee Hill, president of Draft’s Chicago office.

Adding BK to a list of AOR clients already boasting Kellogg and M&M/Mars will boost Draft’s experience in youth marketing, Hill adds. That trio of clients also “enables [Draft] to work even more closely with major entertainment and sports properties,” says Perry Miele, president of Draft’s international group.

The latter task falls to DraftConnections, a four-month-old division led by senior vp Tom Baer that handles entertainment, sports, and event marketing as well as premiums, corporate tie-ins, alternate media, and technology. DraftConnections works with the agencies promo, direct, and digital marketing staffs.

BK’s international business is Draft’s first significant global promotion assignment. The win “clearly sends a signal that Draft’s work to put together a global network is paying off,” says Miele. The agency has been on a worldwide shopping frenzy for the last two years.

All in the Family

Draft, McCann, and Campbell Mithun are all owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies, New York City, but pitched BK separately. “It’s a coincidence more than anything,” says BK spokesperson Kim Miller. “Each agency had to win on its own merits.”

As sister shops, the three may have resources to share — consumer research, for example, which figured heavily in BK’s review process: The company chose shops based in part on whose campaigns tested best with consumers. The efforts created for the reviews gave Draft, McCann, and Campbell Mithun a jump on meeting the two-month turnaround required to have work ready this month.

Meanwhile, incumbent Alcone expects to lay off fewer than 25 staffers, says ceo Matt Alcone. “The vast majority of our BK revenues are still retained” including premium work, marketing services, and administrative tasks, Alcone says. The shop, which created and ran the BK Kids Club for 10 years, hasn’t “always had a consistent situation or always grown year to year,” he adds. “Sometimes we have more BK business, sometimes less. We’re entering a period where there will be less.

“This is a relationship business,” continues Alcone. “Our agency has been very skillful at creating relationships with new [Burger King management] teams as they came in. Obviously, in this case we weren’t as successful.”

Owned by New York City-based Omnicom, Alcone ranked No. 32 in last year’s PROMO 100 with net revenues of $135 million for 1999.

Los Angeles-based Equity’s revenues were unaffected by the review, says spokesperson Ria Carlson. “It would have been great to add the promotion agency-of-record business,” she says of the shop’s participation in the review (along with Zipatoni, Upshot, and Ryan Partnership). “But we’re still premiums AOR.” BK accounts for two-thirds of Equity’s business; net revenues hit $50 million in 1999 to make the agency No. 18 on the PROMO 100.