McCann Worldgroup’s MRM has split with Home Depot, nine months after scoring digital and customer relationship management (CRM) duties according to an internal MRM e-mail. The split was blamed on Home Depot requesting work beyond the original deal without paying additional compensation, according to an Adweek story. Currently, Home Depot has The Richards Group Dallas handling creative and Initiative Atlanta handling media. The big box retailer last year spent $450 million in major measured media, according to Nielsen.
In the internal email sent to Adweek, MRM NYC managing director Corey Mitchell wrote that “for reasons based on a fair exchange of services and a mutual inability to arrive at realistic expectations, we are choosing to walk away from our relationship with The Home Depot completely…It is a shame to have to walk away after so much, but it is not a viable business relationship for us.”
Home Depot confirmed the split via a statement, saying “after a few months of working together we felt it would be in our best interest to end our work with MRM.”
From late 2008 through early 2010, Home Depot held reviews for general market creative, media, digital/CRM duties and Hispanic market. The digital/CRM review concluded in January, with MRM winning.
