Will Ovitz Move Affect CAA-Coke Deal? : Advertising: Talent agency insiders say account is ‘up in the air.’ Partnership set precedent.
Madison Avenue was abuzz Tuesday about whether Michael Ovitz’s move to Walt Disney Co. might affect CAA’s relationship with Coca-Cola Co. CAA has just completed 11 commercials for the soft drink company, which annually spends about $340 million on advertising.
The Coke-CAA deal marked the first time a major advertiser had turned to a talent agency. CAA has produced more than 80 commercials for Coke during its three-year association with the beverage company, some of them directed by talent represented by CAA. CAA’s “Always Coca-Cola” TV campaign, featuring an animated, Coke-sipping polar bear, was ranked the No. 1 commercial of 1994 by Video Storyboard Tests, a research service that measures viewer recall.
Coke spokesman Bob Bertini said Ovitz’s departure from CAA hasn’t changed the soft drink maker’s relationship with the agency. “Obviously, he was a key player,” Bertini said. “But there were people more involved in the day-to-day, a core group that remains. Our assignment for brand Coca-Cola remains at the agency.”
“Coke will do just as well” without Ovitz, said New York advertising executive Jerry Della Femina. “Maybe he provided inspiration, but there’s no record he has done any Coke commercial by himself.”
But people close to the account said privately Tuesday that it was “in a holding pattern.”
“Everything is up in the air,” said one senior CAA executive.
Added another: “Obviously, we hope they continue to work with us. Whether they do is something we don’t know at this time.”
Coke is one of the country’s leading advertisers and its business is highly coveted. Its deal with CAA in 1993 sent shock waves through the advertising business, which braced for an all-out invasion by talent agencies onto its turf.
The onslaught never materialized. CAA hasn’t expanded its advertising business much beyond Coke, and Coca-Cola continues to do business with more than a dozen advertising agencies for its other products, such as Fruitopia.
And though International Creative Management, another Hollywood talent agency, recently inked a marketing deal with Mercedes-Benz, the car maker hasn’t dropped its advertising agency.
Ad industry executives said they expect that any uncertainties about the CAA-Coke relationship will be quickly resolved.
“It could stay with CAA, or the people on the account could defect to another agency,” one New York ad executive said. “Only Sergio” Zyman, Coke’s iconoclastic marketing chief, “knows for sure.”
