Neither a Cannes Creative Effectiveness award (W+K 2013 for Heineken Legends) nor a Cannes Lions Creative Marketer of the Year (Heineken 2015) could save the 5 year relationship.

In the nine years before Wieden + Kennedy became Heineken’s global agency, Heineken had worked its way through six agencies – Lowe, D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, Publicis, Berlin Cameron United, Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam and Euro RSCG.

W+K must have felt just a little uneasy when it won the (then) US$60 million global account in 2011.

Wieden + Kennedy has since managed Heineken from its Amsterdam office, with Wieden & Kennedy New York adding input for US work, including Heineken Light’s.

All things considered, five years is a long run for an agency on Heineken. But with a string of creative and effectiveness awards and with Heineken’s Cannes Lions Creative Marketer of the Year award announced at the end of last year and presented next week, you have to wonder what went wrong.

This is part of the November 2014 statement by Cannes Festival chief executive officer, Philip Thomas, announcing Heineken’s win: “Creative Marketer of the Year at Cannes Lions is awarded to a company who is breaking the boundaries of creativity and who truly believes that creativity drives business and can improve the state of the world. HEINEKEN lives and breathes creativity throughout its organisation, and has a superb framework that allows its marketing teams the freedom to experiment while retaining the core essence of their many brands. It is testament to the company that in the last three years, six of its brands have won 41 lions across seven countries including a coveted Grand Prix in Creative Effectiveness…”

This is part of the statement that Heineken chief commercial officer, Jan Derck van Karnebeek, made this week, “After five years this is a good time to go our separate ways. We have enjoyed a strong and effective partnership. Now it is time to move on for both W&K and Heineken.”

“We are very proud of the creative body of work we developed for the Heineken, Heineken Light and Desperados brands. But in this business, change is more of the norm than the exception and it is time that we each go our own directions. We leave with great respect and admiration for Heineken and wish them the best of luck in their future endeavours,” Dave Luhr, president of Wieden & Kennedy, added in his.

There has been a lot of change at Heineken in recent years. Being a brewer has got tough. Big name beers are fighting attacks from hundreds of boutique brands throughout the world.

Heineken has new brooms doing its sweeping. US chief marketing officer, Lesya Lysyj, left the company in late 2013 to become North American president of Weight Watchers. Global chief marketing officer, Alexis Nasard, is leaving the company soon, following a restructuring in which the positions of global chief marketing officer and chief sales officer became one called chief commercial officer and held by Jan Derck van Karnebeek.

And Heineken is reducing its global operating regions to four from five.

But this part of Van Karnebeek’s statement is perhaps most enlightening, “We work with multiple agencies on Heineken to support the worldwide presence of the brand, and also to bring additional creative thinking. Globally we now enjoy a strong relationship with Publicis, while in many markets we are working with local agencies to deliver outstanding and effective local top-spin campaigns.”