McDonald's Corp. is heading back to the advertising agency that gave customers a break and had them singing about special sauce.
The fast-food giant announced Tuesday it chose DDB Needham Chicago to head its 1998 national advertising and marketing efforts, sharply curtailing a 16-year relationship with Leo Burnett Co.
The decision represents more than two-thirds of the estimated $400 million to $600 million McDonald's plans to spend for the 1998 advertising year on media and production billings.
"We asked both agencies to give us their best thinking," said Brad Ball, senior vice president for marketing. "They both came back with surprisingly similar consumer insights, but the edge, we believe, was in favor of DDB Needham."
Needham, based in New York, has done mostly international and U.S. promotional work for McDonald's in recent years, after losing the majority of the fast-food chain's marketing to Burnett in 1981 following an 10-year reign.
The company rebounded from that loss, last year taking in $903 million in billings from such accounts at Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser frogs and Rold Gold pretzels.
Still, Needham placed such importance on the McDonald's account that it enlisted director-actor Spike Lee and the heads of several domestic offices to join the company's chief executive in handling the pitch last week to McDonald's. Lee started his own agency in conjunction with Needham last year.
For Keith Reinhard, chief executive of Needham Worldwide, the announcement was a homecoming. Reinhard in the early 1970s created the "You deserve a break today" promotion as well as the "two all-beef patties, special sauce..." Big Mac jingle.
"I feel terrific," Reinhard said from New York, while munching on McDonald's fries and sipping a glass of champagne. "Being named as the lead agency in their home market at this time in their development is really a tremendous vote of confidence."
Leo Burnett will continue to represent the company's American marketing strategies for young children, teen-agers and the Ronald McDonald business, including Happy Meals promotions, the fast-food company said.
Burnett pitched two lines to McDonald's in high-level meetings last week, according to a source who attended the meeting and requested anonymity. One of the lines was: "McDonald's. Enjoy."
"It is disappointing," said Burnett spokesman Wally Petersen. "In this business, things like this do happen, but we are looking at it here as an opportunity to continue to provide them with our best effort and our best creative ideas to further build their business."
But Needham will be charged with delivering all adult and promotional advertising and shoring up McDonald's image as the fast-food chain of choice for consumers.
McDonald's has seen declining sales at stores open at least a year in the United States, in part because of consumer dissatisfaction with the taste of its food. Competitors Wendy's and Burger King, meanwhile, have been making inroads -- a trend McDonald's has been struggling to reverse.
In its pitch to McDonald's to land the account, Needham reportedly used only one line -- "Did somebody say McDonald's?" -- over a series of commercials focusing on what McDonald's means to families. Reinhard declined to confirm that that was the pitch line but said McDonald's approved the pitch line as its new slogan.
Burnett created the short-lived "My McDonald's" campaign that featured owner-operators and was launched around the fast-food chain's failed 55-discount promotion on core sandwiches.
The Chicago-based company this year has lost several large accounts, including Miller Brewing, Reebok and United Airlines. It has picked up smaller accounts from Eli Lilly, Nature Made Vitamins and Walgreen's, but marketing experts have said losing major accounts could cause a domino effect and have other major clients placing their accounts up for review.
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