±±¾©Èü³µpk10

Coca-Cola’s in-house agen- cy Edge Creative is to close its doors

next month in a move that could see an extra pounds 100 million business

move into Coke’s roster agencies.

McCann-Erickson, Leo Burnett, Publicis, D’Arcy, Wieden & Kennedy, Bartle

Bogle Hegarty and Doner are all in line to benefit from the demise of

Edge, which was set up in 1992 to help mastermind a more global approach

to advertising.

However, times have chan-ged at the soft drinks giant, which has

suffered damaging contamination scandals in Europe and a sluggish soft

drinks market at home.

There is a new mood of local autonomy emanating from Coke headquarters

in Atlanta and industry observers have been wondering for some time how

much longer Edge would survive. Coke executives, however, claimed that

Edge’s demise was solely because the agency principals wanted to move

on.

’It is true we are disbanding Edge Creative,’ a Coke spokesman

commented.

’It was the principals of the agency who initiated it as opposed to the

other way round.

’They’ve been working with the same team on the same project for eight

years and they came to us and said it was time to move on.’

He declined to elaborate on what would happen to Edge’s business:

’There’s been no conclusion reached about that. The model using Edge

worked very well for us but Coca-Cola is probably more receptive to

change than at any other point in its history.

’There’s no guarantee that the relationship won’t continue with the

principals of the agency. It’s too premature to see how things will

change.’