Jaguar today announced it has awarded its global digital business to Euro RSCG Worldwide. The global account will be run from the flagship New York under the leadership of Executive Creative Directors Alicia Johnson and Hal Wolverton. Euro beat out Global Beach and Haymarket Media Group, both based in the UK.

The press release touts this as the "second major integrated win, following LendingTree, for Euro RSCG Worldwide since its commitment to put digital at the core of its global strategy."

Blah, blah, blah. That LendingTree. Lets see how you guys are fairing in a year or so. Get back to us, yeah? EuroRSCG beat out Mullen to snag the mortgage company's account. LendingTree is one of the largest Internet advertisers; it spent $226 million in domestic measure media on LendingTree.com between January and September of 2007.

The London office of Euro RSCG is close to finalizing a deal to be the AOR for Chivas Regal.

The agency picked up the business following a two-way pitch against the incumbent agency, TBWA\Worldwide.

Pernod Ricard initially briefed a TBWA team, which was made up of creatives from around the network, to submit ideas for a brief to create a global advertising campaign.

However, the company also approached Euro RSCG with the brief and asked the agency to supply ideas.

When TBWA's work didn't score highly enough in the global research (in other words it must have sucked big time -- just like 95% of alcohol advertising out there), the brief turned into a full pitch.

Chivas Regal is now available in more than 200 countries and in 2007, the brand sold more than four million nine-litre cases worldwide. It is one of the best performing spirits brands globally, with sales having grown by 40% over the last four years.

The company's media is handled by Aegis Media, which retained the £100 million international Pernod Ricard account in December last year.

EuroRSCG has replaced John Rausch on the Sprint account by promoting from within. Bernardo Gomez is the winner and you can now call him Group Creative Director thankyouverymuch. Gomez has works on the Citibank account (the shops second biggest client behind Sprint) and is more than supporting the shop's new Effen Vodka.

EuroRSCG’s Chicago management will give staffers bonuses. Hot damn! The entire staff will receive at least $1000 with certain people receiving more based on performance. EuroRSCG normally follows a set guideline for raises and bonuses, which is stricter than most agencies. So, what's with skipping all the paperwork? Who cares? We’re sure no one is complaining.

As for Rausch and the coup... One of, if not the biggest accounts that EuroRSCG holds is Sprint. Often, the account has run smoothly without a creative director. Postaer has stepped in where necessary, but his other responsibilities has kept him from really holding it down. They couldn't slide over Blake Ebel because he was to busy brilliantly handling what we hear is a testy client, Citibank. Sprint was happy. The agency was turning in good work and managed to go without a group creative director for years. So why hire a group director at all? Rausch had been at DraftFCB for a short stint of six months before making this bounce to EuroRSCG, so why him?

WE HEAR that... The account people on Sprint, who had worked with him, previously, recruited Rausch. They liked him. Postaer, doing what anyone would have done, went along with it. Here's what we know about Sprint - it's a demanding client with non-stop, direct response projects rolling through the gates. Again, EuroRSCG had been doing a great job, so all Rausch had to do was keep it real, let the staff do their thing. Instead, Rausch recruited a creative director. He began dabbling in the business. The creative team wasn't having it sending complaints up the food chain.

Senior management at EuroRSCG had to do something. The creative team was called in and told that Rausch had some objectives to hit, hadn't, it wasn't working out, blah, blah, blah. They asked Rausch and his hire to leave.

And that folks, is how senior management should respond when a new leader doesn't mesh with a fully functioning, high-level creative team. Good luck to Rausch and bravo to the management. Sprint team? Nice fucking work.

John Rausch is no longer at Euro RSCG Chicago. John has held the post of SVP/group creative director on the Sprint account, since June 2007. Apparently, some folks went with him. The story we hear, is that John took 'em on. Took 'em all on, which raised some hackles and prompted a mini-coup by the creative team. No shit. We tried contacting Euro RSCG's press gal three times, but she ignored, so we don't have a quote or confirmation from the agency to match this story of revolution.

Why does this matter to you? Not us covering our ass, but about John leaving the agency? Because Sprint may be looking to be put this end of their business, direct marketing, up for review, silly. Yeah, that's the word on the street. Draft? You listening? It's no joke with $13,000,000 in annual fee revenue on the line. Start your engines.

LendingTree, who had a $508M loss this past 4Q, has appointed Euro RSCG New York as its Integrated Agency of Record. Notice the integrated bit. Isn't thata nice touch? The win is Euro RSCG New York's first since they consumed 4D, the agency's digital arm.

The press release also takes a stab at all other death stars out there:

"This move put digital at the core of the agency's operations and under a unified management team and P&L -- in sharp contrast to how the majority of larger agencies still operate in a siloed manner regarding digital."

"Digital is fully embedded into every conversation which underscores their commitment to their new model and provides them with a competitive point of difference that's especially relevant for a business like ours," said Doug Lebda, founder of LendingTree and president of IAC.

Did the agency write that bit for Doug? Anyway, Euro RSCG will work with LendingTree on new product innovation, creative development, digital marketing and planning. Um, they might need more than that to right their mortgage crises induced troubled ship. LendingTree is also being spun into a publicly traded company. This should be so much fun for EuroRSCG to deal with.

Catch this though - Mullen (the incumbent) "will continue to provide media planning, buying and analytics services for the company and will work on select creative and digital project." Bizarre. If RSCG is so integrated, why step outside the agency or the family, Havas, to get the rest of this done?