Chelsea Vs Arsenal: A Tale Of Two Agencies

Having lost UEFA as a client last year, Chelsea took a risk and brought in a new creative director in Antonio Conte, who despite an incredible track record in Italy was still somewhat of an unknown quantity. Conte wasted no time reshaping the creative department, bringing in hard working junior team Victor Moses & Marcos Alonso, as well as adding N’Golo Kante who picked up a pair of gold lions last year thanks to his groundbreaking work for King Power.

New accounts followed Conte’s hiring, with Yokohama Tyres already on board, Chelsea picked up Carabao Energy & made headlines by securing the Nike account, parting ways with Adidas in the process. Chelsea now look like strong favourites for agency of the year, thanks in no small part to the work of superstar double act Eden Hazard and Diego Costa.

Across the city, however, a very different story is unfolding, Arsenal, a once flourishing agency boasting legendary creatives such at Thierry Henry, Robert Pires & Dennis Bergkamp, has fallen by the wayside in recent years. Moving into their new state of the art North London office in 2006, Arsenal were hoping to reestablish themselves as the cities top shop, but sadly things haven’t played out that way – clients such as JVC and O2 have come and gone, awards have dried up and smaller agencies such as Tottenham have threatened to steal the limelight from them.

Their failure can be put down in large part to the stubbornness of their creative director Arsene Wenger. Once London’s leading ad-man, his failure to embrace change and deviate from TV and print has proved costly in recent years, and he’s also faced criticism for bringing in many of the same types of creatives – leading to a lot of one dimensional work, and after an embarrassing loss last week on a pitch against Watford Ad School, many are calling for Wenger to be sacked.

The planning department has warranted it’s fair share of critics too, the words ’target market’ are meaningless at Arsenal and rarely do they win a pitch against a top-six agency. Whatever their issues may be, creative talent certainly isn’t lacking in North London, recent work from Oliver Giroud and Alexis Sanchez captured the attention of the world, but for all their individual ability, nine times out of ten, even the likes of Mesut Ozil cannot rescue a bad brief.