MetLife Names Argonaut New Creative Agency

Argonaut has been named MetLife's new global creative agency after a review.

The review was initiated by the insurance company's relatively new Global Chief Marketing Officer Esther Lee, who joined the company in December. The review began in March and was handled by Select Resources.

Esther Lee

Ms. Lee said she initiated the review because she wanted marketing to have a "clean slate." The account had previously been at MDC Partners' CP&B, which was invited to participate in the review, but declined, Ms. Lee said.

"When I joined and looked at what type of work we had been doing, I saw that it was a lot of basic communications around our products and services. There was not a lot of energy around the bigger story of the brand," Ms. Lee said. "To me, the purpose of the company, what we do for people and how we drive society forward are pieces of the brand story. We needed an ideas agency that could create this platform and do detailed communication."

Argonaut, based in San Francisco and owned by Project Worldwide, is a relatively new agency, opening about two years ago. The shop first attracted attention for its Volkswagen spot "Wings" in the 2014 Super Bowl. The shop has also worked with Fitbit, and earlier this year, it was named to the Hershey roster, along with Anomaly and Barkley.