Portland, Oregon’s Mutt, a startup business established by former Wieden + Kennedy executives, recently acquired the Mello Yello brand by Coca Cola right after a review.

The establishers of the company are ex-Wieden + Kennedy executive creative directors Michael McCommon and Steve Luker and executive director of planning and research Scott Cromer.

Coca Cola’s Mello Yello, a citrus-flavored soda, has not been marketed in 17 years. Following this acquisition, Mutt will re-market the product by March 2010. Mutt, which was accepted last February, also functions for Paciugo, a gelato chain from Dallas, and local architect Skylab.

Mutt’s Luker said that the company was incepted in the middle of the global economic depression but there are still a lot of opportunities waiting to be taken. “Clients are really up for change: Look at Mello Yello taking a chance with a startup. We’re very optimistic,” he added.

Before Mutt, Luker was at Wieden working on Nike (US and Latin America), Target, Starbucks, and Coca Cola. McCommon was also on Nike and Electronic Arts. Moreover, Cromer was a startup business strategist, helping the agency win the accounts of Coke, Heineken, CareerBuilder, and Diet Coke.

Prior to Wieden, McCommon and Luker were at Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, where they relaunched Hewlett Packard (HP) following its Compaq merger. And even before that, both Luker and McCommon functioned at Hal Riney and Partners, working with clients like the Sacramento Kings, Saturn, HP and Discovery.com.

Post Author: guest

This entry was posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 11:50 am and is filed under Corporate News, Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.