KitchenAid Selects Saatchi & Saatchi
April 20, 2008
KitchenAid, the appliance and kitchen-equipment maker owned by the Whirlpool Corporation, said yesterday that it had selected Saatchi & Saatchi in New York, part of the Publicis Groupe, to handle its account. Billings were estimated at $30 million.
KitchenAid assignments had been handled for 20 years by N. W. Ayer & Partners in New York, part of the Bcom3 Group, which was absorbed in April by a Bcom3 sibling, the Kaplan Thaler Group in New York. The merger ”was an opportunity for us to think about our business and where our business is going to be best served,” said Brian Maynard, brand director for integrated marketing for KitchenAid Home Appliances in Benton Harbor, Mich.
About 10 people who had worked on KitchenAid at Ayer, then at Kaplan Thaler, will join Saatchi & Saatchi to work on the account there, Mr. Maynard said. The shift expands the Whirlpool relationship with Publicis, which handles the company’s Whirlpool brand globally.