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Take a ticket for the Waitrose pitch

Posted in Advertising, Nikki Preston, Latest reporters' blogs November 5th, 2007 by Nikki Preston

Winning Waitrose’s £26 million advertising business would definitely be the star on top of the Christmas tree for one lucky agency as it looks like the last big pitch of the year is up for grabs.

But which agency’s wish will come true and who will be given the task of creating campaigns that better educate customers about why they should pay a premium for their grocery products?

Along with the incumbent Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy (MCBD), who I imagine are keen to hold onto the sizeable business after losing the Blacks account last month, there are bound to be a number of agencies lining up to grab the business before year end.

For one there is Lowe London, who has not only recently pleased Waitrose’s sister company John Lewis with its new TV advertising campaign but also lost the Tesco business in 2005. According to John Lewis, the businesses run “autonomously of each other” so there is no conflict of interest in terms of Lowe being invited.

However, perhaps the high-end supermarket wants to differentiate itself further from John Lewis and give another agency a chance. Under the new leadership of former Nike marketer Neil Simpson, perhaps Publicis London has a fighting chance of rebuilding its depleting client portfolio and transferring its experience with Asda to the high end supermarket.

With JWT losing Vodafone, Lipton Ice Tea and BA in the past 12 months, it too are looking to sink their teeth in a big chunk of business and like Publicis and Lowe have no client conflicts but also no recent supermarket experience.

Whoever does manage to snatch this nice piece of business will undoubtedly have to put up a fight for it.

To read the news story related to this blog, go to mad.co.uk