Office Depot appoints BCW as PR AOR

BOCA RATON, FL: Office Depot has named BCW Group its PR AOR.

BCW Group, parent of Burson Cohn & Wolfe and other brands, pulled together talent from across its network to form the Office Depot team, according to a statement from the office supplies company. 

BCW won the business via a competitive pitch. "With the amount of change Office Depot is going through, it believed it needed a new partner with a proven track record of helping companies tell their transformation story," said a BCW spokesperson, via email.

MD Tom Dowling is the lead on the account, which BCW started working on in September.

Financial terms of the business weren’t disclosed.

Edelman had been retained by Office Depot for project-based work, said Danny Jovic, director of communications at Office Depot, adding that the company did not have an AOR "for some time." He declined to break out further details about Edelman’s work.

In March, Office Depot handed marketing AOR duties to a WPP team led by Y&R, comprised of MediaCom, Landor, and VML. This was prior to Y&R’s merger with VML; the combined entity is known as VMLY&R.

In addition to PR, WPP now handles brand platform development, creative campaign work, brand identity, e-commerce solutions, digital activation, and media buying for the office supplies company, the statement said.

In the statement, Jerri DeVard, chief marketing and customer officer at Office Depot, highlighted BCW’s ability to develop "compelling stories communicated across channels that engage audiences and drive them to action."

DeVard joined Office Depot last year shortly after the company announced its "transformation" strategy. In addition to switching up its marketing function, Office Depot brought on an IR head in August: VP Timothy Perrott.

Tasked with corporate reputation, positioning, and thought leadership duties, BCW will help tell that story as Office Depot pivots from being a paper seller to what it calls "an omni-channel business services platform, providing end-to-end solutions for businesses of all sizes."

In Q2, Office Depot beat analyst expectations with $2.6 billion in quarterly revenue. 

The holding-company-wide approach WPP took for Office Depot is similar to the dedicated teams it formed for other global clients, such as GTB for Ford, which is a 3,500-person team raking in about $700 million.

GTB recently lost creative duties on Ford to Omnicom’s BBDO. However, it retains oversight of media, production, CRM, and digital services.

This story was updated on October 17 with additional information.