Whitbread is planning to take its Bella Pasta high street
restaurant chain on to TV for the first time next year and has appointed
Crammond Dickens Lerner to create the brand-building campaign.
The agency won the creative assignment in a pitch against a number of
undisclosed shops and on the back of its work on the delivery operation
for Pizza Hut, jointly owned in the UK by Whitbread and PepsiCo.
The new work, for which budgets are being finalised, will be a key
element in the development of Bella Pasta, acquired by Whitbread along
with the Pizzaland chain when it bought the Bright-Reasons group in a
pounds 46 million deal nine months ago.
The Pizzaland name is disappearing in favour of Bella Pasta as Whitbread
seeks to capitalise on one of the fastest growing sectors of the
eating-out market, which has a particularly strong appeal to women. It
plans to boost the current 72 outlets to 200 by the millennium.
Crammond Dickens takes over creative work on the account from GGT, whose
involvement with Bella Pasta stopped after the Whitbread takeover. Media
planning and buying remains with Optimedia.
The initiative is being spearheaded by a new management team at
BrightReasons, headed by Stephen Evans, the managing director, who
previously ran Forte’s Harvester restaurant chain. Alongside him is Ed
Aspel, a former senior marketer at Pizza Hut, who was involved in last
year’s launch of the ’stuffed crust’ pizza.
Aspel said: ’Crammond Dickens has shown it can deliver for Pizza Hut and
for other retail-focused clients.’
