Intel shuffles its ad agencies after controversial mag spread

Contrary to blog chatter today, Intel's creative relationship with McCann-Erickson, the firm responsible for a questionable ad last year, has not ended entirely, though $300 million of its media planning and buying will go elsewhere.

Omnicom Group's OMD will replace Universal McCann and Starcom who currently handle Intel Corp's $300 million dollar global account. The company announced its win yesterday, after a year-long review from Intel.

Universal McCann is but one division of parent company McCann Worldgroup, another division of which is McCann-Erickson - which handles the creative aspect of the Intel account.

An Intel spokesperson told BetaNews today, "The recent naming of OMD as our new agency on the media buy account has nothing to do with our creative. McCann is still our agency-of-record for creative." There are no plans to review that assignment, even though the group received heavy criticism for an ad it designed last year.

The controversial McCann Erickson-created ad, shown here, pictures a single white man standing above half a dozen black sprinters. Some have construed this as blatant racism, as the men appear to be kowtowing before the employee. The companies admitted the execution of the ad was flawed, failing to deliver their intended message. The companies also failed to pull the ad from all the media in which it ran, and had to apologize and assure the public that they will "[work] hard to make sure this doesn't happen again."