Take 5 Oil Change, a fast oil-change and light maintenance chain with thousands of U.S. locations, is overhauling its marketing strategy under its first chief marketing officer, Doug Zarkin.
The company has hired Atlanta-based Dagger and dentsu X as its creative and media agencies of record, respectively, with a goal to modernize its brand in a commoditized category. Dagger previously worked with the brand on a project basis, while media was spread across multiple agencies, including dentsu X.
The agency appointments are exclusively for Take 5 Oil Change and not for its parent company Driven Brands, Zarkin said. COMvergence estimates Take 5 Oil Change’s 2024 media spend was $10 million.
Zarkin said the company’s earlier creative agency model, which operated on a project-basis, wasn’t built for the rapid pace at which Take 5 Oil Change is opening stores across the U.S.—at a clip of 100 to 200 locations per year. On the media side, relationships across several agencies created confusion and consistency.
“In a highly commoditized business like quick lube oil, you have to be living and breathing the business 24/7,” he said.
Take 5 Oil Change brought on Krista Lang as vice president of media investments earlier this month to manage the relationship with dentsu X, and has hired Jennifer Renna, who begins Dec. 1, as vice president of integrated marketing to oversee work with Dagger. Sean-Paul Brown will also start on Nov. 24 as director of visual merchandising and brand experience.
Dagger has expanded its strategy function and hired a new creative director to run the account.
Prove it
Zarkin, who joined Take 5 Oil Change in July, led the process to find new agencies. Instead of launching a typical review, he gave the agencies projects in order to prove themselves before hiring them.
The resulting structure has Dagger and dentsu X working closely, with creative and media teams in weekly meetings together along with Take 5 Oil Change’s marketing team. Both agencies work from an integrated brief and can access the brand’s internal data to inform their strategies.
“My hope is three months from now, you can’t tell who’s being paid by whom,” Zarkin said.
“We really do feel embedded into the organization,” said Teri Brady, who joined Dagger as brand president in October. “We join Doug’s marketing meetings on Monday as a unified front. We jump in there, talk to each other, and then all [align on] the same goal.”
Bruce Williams, who was appointed CEO of dentsu X North America on Nov. 17, echoed that creative and media teams are working much more closely together. “You can’t underscore what Doug and the Take 5 team have brought in terms of transparency, candor, and clarity,” he said.
