Ads guru joins Coles makeover team

IS IT a love triangle or a case of three's a crowd? As Coles works hard to recreate its brand, relying heavily on the link with MasterChef, it seems the supermarket giant has bought in a third party to deliver what its creative agency can't.

By InvestSMART · 3 Sep 2010

By InvestSMART ·
3 Sep 2010

Coles was this week coy about its relationship with veteran Melbourne advertising figure Ted Horton, but did confirm that Mr Horton had been brought in to work with ad company DDB on the Coles account.

Coles' general manager of marketing, Tony Phillips, said he had had a relationship with Mr Horton for some time and that Mr Horton was "part of the team" working on Coles' marketing. He said Coles hired DDB about 18 months ago and that Mr Horton does not work for DDB but has "a contractual relationship with them".

Asked whether Coles brought Mr Horton in to improve DDB's marketing strategy for Coles, Mr Phillips said "that's kind of half true". But pressed on whether it was a Coles decision alone or one including DDB, he said people would "have to stay curious".

"I knew Ted, I knew that there was some work that Ted could do that would suit where we were going. I have a strong relationship with DDB. Ted does work for DDB on our account, he doesn't work for them but they have a relationship where Ted provides services that we want and we like," Mr Phillips said. "Our relationship is with DDB, DDB have a contracted relationship with Ted and I guess we are more than happy with that relationship."

To further complicate the three-way relationship, Mr Phillips used to work for DDB as national managing director, retail, and before that worked for Coles.

Mr Horton, who has worked on several Liberal Party election ad campaigns as well as big-name campaigns such as David Jones, is now the creative director at the Big Red agency. He did not return calls from BusinessDay.

Mr Phillips said Coles was "absolutely, totally rebuilding the brand" and that his team at Coles had driven the new marketing direction. "Our creative agency is DDB but a lot of this, the strategy, the planning, the point of sale, the branded content integration, is all done by my team at Coles," he said.

He said the relationship with MasterChef and chef Curtis Stone had been "incredibly beneficial" for Coles. "It was part of the strategy that we set."

DDB did not respond to questions from BusinessDay.