McCann Takes Over Chevy Ad Agency

New York City-based McCann Worldgroup says it has assumed full ownership of Commonwealth, the Detroit-based joint venture that handles global advertising for General Motors Co.'s Chevrolet brand.

McCann has acquired the 50% stake owned by San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, thus gaining control of the worldwide Chevy account. The brand spent $975 million in U.S. advertising last year.

Goodby won Chevy's U.S. account in May 2010 when GM's newly hired global marketing chief Joel Ewanick took the business away from Campbell Ewald. The Warren, Mich.-based agency had handled the brand's advertising for 91 years.

Ewanick added McCann, a unit of Interpublic Group, to the equation a year ago by engineering the creation of Commonwealth. Ewanick was fired four months later over his handling of Chevy's sponsorship deal with English soccer giant Manchester United.