StarCom has scored three new pieces of business - Delta Air Lines,
Sportal and Dobedo.co.uk - which will spend a total of pounds 8 million
between them.
The agency took the global Delta media buying brief from Zenith, having
landed the planning assignment two months ago. The buying account is
worth pounds 5 million in the UK.
Historically Delta has based its media spend around print advertising,
adding elements of TV and radio, but joint managing director Richard
Beaven hinted that the new media team might well turn to less
traditional media on this occasion.
Leo Burnett - before it became StarCom - made a name for its former
client United Airlines six years ago when it ran the biggest taxi ad
campaign ever.
Beaven said: ’Traditionally with Delta there’s been a huge focus on the
London market because of the business element. If you haven’t got the
budgets of British Airways you must work strategically.’
The business will come under the remit of director Michelle Steggles,
who is in the process of lining up the account team.
Sportal, the network of sports internet sites, is to spend pounds 1
million in the UK over the next 12 months. While Steggles will again
oversee the business, the new-media elements will be handled by Antonio
Silano, head of StarCom IPC, the agency’s specialist digital
division.
Sportal’s budget is expected to be spent online in a mixture of
above-the-line vehicles which target sports enthusiasts.
The pounds 2 million-spending Dobedo.co.uk, also under Steggles’ remit,
is a cartoon ’chat-flirt site’ from Scandinavia. Its managers claim it
is used by half-a-million 16- to 26-year-olds in Sweden.
StarCom’s brief is a worldwide communications strategy plus media
planning and buying. It is expected to use a mix of youth media for a
campaign kicking off before Christmas.
