Goodbye Yakult

Bad news this week when we heard that we’d been fired by Yakult. It’s customary in such situations to say something like, ‘This represents a big opportunity for us and frees us up to work with new partners in the fast-growing functional foods category.’ But, to be honest, it’s not an opportunity, it’s a blow. It’s a bummer. It does not represent the dawning of a bold new era for W+K London.

We’re very proud of the work we’ve done for Yakult and the results we’ve achieved. We’ve really enjoyed working with the

UK

team, who are smart, passionate, honest and good fun. Unfortunately, there is a desire for a reduction in the number of agencies across

Europe

and we lose out. It just shows how precarious this business is and that you can never get complacent. One week you win Nokia, next week you lose Yakult.

We’ll miss the little bottle.

Comments

[Colman]

Don't really know what to say, except thank you, thank you very much indeed.

We'll miss you too.

[Jay]

The rest of us miss the beautiful work too.

[Jay]

Er, that was "...will miss the beautiful work". Not that we were missing it already. Or that it was bad. Because it was not. It was brilliant. Sorry guys, can't type anymore (goes off sobbing).

[L.Vazquez]

Sorry to hear it. I also recently felt the sting of a job not going my way, and was going to bring it up as a question in a recent post.

So, does the 'embrace failure' lesson apply here?

[neil]

Embrace failure? I'm not sure. It's not as if we aimed too high and fell short. We were victims of circumstance rather than failures. That's the way it goes.

[Luis Vazquez]

Right... I re-read the post. Good to see the honesty behind how it feels.

[primoz]

Sorry to hear that. I'll miss your Yakult creative work, which I find it represents the no-nonsense, straight-forward and kind of quirky approach to advertising of you guys.

Heh, you win some, you lose some.

[Seb]

Everytime I saw Yakult ads on German TV I thought "Why can't they do ads like WK London and Yakult UK?". Witty, charmin, brilliant (especially the Spooberry TVC). But evidently there are people who don't really care about if it's a good decision to separate the right people from the right people. Sad. But true. Obviously.

[MarcusBrown]

if it's going to the people who do the nonsense we have in Germany it will hurt even more. Believe me. It's appalling. Paul, it is appalling isn't it.

[hermeti (aliceinadland)]

fair enough that they want to reduce the number of agencies across europe. but why sack the one agency that produced their most brilliant work in years? sorry for the pun but this one is hard to swallow...

[hermeti (aliceinadland)]

fair enough that they want to reduce the number of agencies across europe. but why sack the one agency that produced their most brilliant work in years? sorry for the pun but this one is hard to swallow...

[mylar mirrors (don't shatter)]

Germany? The ja Kult?

understand negative, be aware of false positives.

[Northern Planner]

That sucks. Big is by no means better

[Hendo]

Incredible honesty in your entry. Damn right brilliant approach, both to your work on Yakult and the demise of it's business opportunity...

Sorry spooberrys.

Respect.

h

[Rob Mortimer]

At least this post reminds of just why we like W+K so much.

I voted this among my top 5 ads of the year too, shame. I'll feel a tinge of sadness as I sip my little bottle tomorrow...

[anon]

ah well, perhaps it's time to start looking in the job section of the local news paper. As one door slams in your face another door opens. Jump before you are pushed, that's my advice, it looks better on your cv and leaves less scares on the the psyche.
Sayonara yakult.