The pet supplies retailer PetSmart has concluded a four-month review of its advertising accounts by awarding both creative and media duties to BarkleyOKRP, the Kansas City agency that has been building a respectable stable of clients since its formation through merger in 2022.

The review, which is standard practice for a marketer of PetSmart's scale, appears to have proceeded without the public dramatics that sometimes accompany such competitions. (One imagines the participating agencies were on their best behavior, treats in hand.)

BarkleyOKRP is part of the Stagwell network, the holding company assembled by Mark Penn that has positioned itself as a challenger to the traditional advertising conglomerates. The agency's name, for those keeping score at home, reflects the 2022 combination of Barkley, the independent shop founded in Kansas City in 1964, and OKRP, the Chicago creative agency that had previously operated under the name O'Keefe, Reinhard & Paul.

PetSmart, which operates more than 1,600 stores across North America, has been competing in an increasingly crowded pet retail landscape that includes not only its longtime rival Petco but also the seemingly inexorable expansion of Chewy in the e-commerce realm. The company, which has been privately held since 2015 when a consortium including BC Partners acquired it, does not disclose its advertising expenditures publicly.

The assignment of both creative and media responsibilities to a single agency reflects a broader industry trend toward consolidation of duties that were, for several decades, routinely split between specialist shops. Whether this represents genuine efficiency or simply the latest turn of an ever-rotating wheel remains, as always, a matter of perspective.

For BarkleyOKRP, the win adds a national retail account to a roster that suggests the merger has accomplished what such combinations are meant to accomplish. The pets, presumably, have no opinion on the matter.

Original story published in adage.com: "Why BarkleyOKRP won PetSmart’s creative and media account - Ad Age"