UK: InBev and Bartle Bogle Hegarty advertising agency resigned their 15 years accounts

The London-based Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) advertising agency has now resigned its accounts with brand owner InBev and will no longer devise commercials for Boddingtons, Castlemaine XXXX and Murphy's, Manchester Evening News posted October 17.

Time has been called on the spectacularly successful advertising relationship which made Boddingtons bitter the "Cream Of Manchester". BBH had worked on the Boddingtons brand for 15 years.

It created some of the most recognisable advertising slogans in history and helping to turn the Manchester model Melanie Sykes into a household name.

Much of the agency's work poked gentle fun at the fact that Boddingtons was a peculiarly northern drink with a strong working class following. One TV commercial featured glamorous Boddingtons representatives taking a gondola trip along the River Irwell.

BBH's more recent work for InBev saw the brand's association with Manchester being gradually weakened ahead of the announcement which saw Boddingtons production moved out of the Strangeways brewery.

It has been reported that InBev's annual advertising spend on the Boddingtons brand has reduced in recent years, perhaps encouraging BBH to go after more lucrative international beer business.

InBev - which retains the Manchester's Communique agency to handle its national PR account - now says that it now searching "for new ways of promoting its standard lager and ale brands".

A spokesman added: "BBH have been a fantastic creative agency and we are delighted to have had the opportunity to work with them. We still work with Communique and have no plans to review our other marketing accounts at this moment in time."

BBH's Ben Fennell said: "We wish InBev a very fond farewell and are proud of our award-winning recent campaigns for Murphy's and Boddingtons. It's good to go out on a high."

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