The Hong Kong-listed Kerry Properties is in the final stages of a major reshuffle of its agency roster for some of its biggest brands, including Shangri-La and Hotel Jen.
The Shangri-La has confirmed that after almost six years working with Ogilvy, it has parted ways, opting instead to use a number of agencies on a project-by-project basis.
“After a long and mutually beneficial relationship with Ogilvy, we have decided to take some time to reconsider our future marketing needs and what is the best way to engage external agencies to help us evolve and implement our marketing strategy,” the company said in a statement to Marketing.
Ogilvy won Shangri-La Hotels in 2009 and launched the controversial “It’s in our nature,” campaign the following year. That campaign was the only major piece of global work it created for Shangri-La and the hotel brand is now looking for change.
The move is not an unexpected one. OgilvyOne last year lost Shangri-La’s Golden Circle loyalty business to DigitasLBi, which launched #LoyaltyIs – its biggest consumer campaign to date.
READ MORE: Shangri-La embraced the data revolution and its driving big change
Additionally, Kerry Properties has confirmed the appointment of Alchemy to help “define and evolve” Kerry Hotel's position in the hospitality space. Work will focus on evaluating the Kerry Hotel brand in view of planned expansion plans.
The relaunched Hotel Jen brand is also undergoing a tender process. Incumbent agency Fluid along with other agencies have been included in the RFP.
It seems for now the reshuffle will not immediately affect Fluid which Kerry said will continue to work on the Hotel Jen account for marketing collateral and research.
“Fluid's core work on the brand has been successful as seen from the many awards the brand and hotels have won and from the current business performance of the hotels - which continues to progress."
Timing of the decision to part ways with Ogilvy comes as the agency today announced chief executive Adam O’Conor had taken on more work as Asia Pacific president of global brand management in addition to his role as chief executive officer for the network’s regional headquarters in Hong Kong.