In an internal email seen by Campaign, Pizza Hut said it was ending the nine-year relationship following the departure of several key McCann staff working on the restaurant's account, which is worth in the region of US$7 million.
The agency also drew criticism from the client that it did not communicate the changes face-to-face, but via SMS and e-mail.
Pizza Hut confirmed in the email that it had spoken with three new agencies and "evaluated their organisation strength, met up with the respective CEOs, saw some of their portfolios/ work and decided to ask them to pitch for the account." The three agencies are believed to be Lowe, Publicis and JWT.
McCann was unavailable for comment at press time.
