Omnicom is combining the media resource of Griffin Bacal’s media
department and BMP Optimum in a move designed to strengthen the media
credentials of the full-service Griffin Bacal agency.
The initiative will see Griffin Bacal retain its pounds 30
million-billing in-house media operation, but will allow it to tap into
Optimum’s status as a top-five media player. Griffin Bacal will pay
Optimum a fee for the service.
The deal gives the agency access to the media buying muscle of Optimum,
which billed pounds 311 million last year, and Griffin Bacal will join
Manning Gottlieb Media as part of Optimum’s television negotiations.
At the same time, Griffin Bacal will share Optimum’s media resource and
expertise, such as strategic planning, systems and media research,
including the Roar and Quality of Viewing studies.
Gary Ward, the media director of Griffin Bacal, will retain his
eight-strong media team and will also have access to Optimum’s strategic
planner, Natalie Birchall.
Griffin Bacal’s main media clients include the pounds 25 million Hasbro
Toys account, RyanAir, Sandals Resorts and Burberrys. The Hasbro account
gives the agency an acknowledged strength in the children’s market, but
Ward admitted that the new relationship with Optimum would enhance
Griffin Bacal’s media offering.
’It’s a reassurance to our clients that we have a fully resourced media
service and the ability to buy TV outside the children’s market,’ he
said.
Paul Taylor, the managing director of BMP Optimum, said the deal,
alongside the similar relationship with the sister Omnicom media
specialist, MGM, was an ’example of Omnicom starting to play to its
strengths by pulling together its media resource more effectively’.
