Rover has taken its UK media planning account out of Ammirati Puris
Lintas and handed it to Zenith Media.
The planning brief had been tipped to go to M&C Saatchi, which picked up
the UK creative account in September. But John Sanders, marketing
director of Rover, decided to put the planning with the media buying
account, which Zenith already holds.
APL held the pounds 40 million Rover creative account until this year,
when M&C picked up the UK brief and WCRS was appointed to launch the
Rover 25 and 45 models in Europe.
Zenith has poached Mark Howley, the planning director for Rover at APL,
to work on the account. He will join the media agency next month and
Zenith will take up the reins of Rover’s planning in the next couple of
weeks.
Graham Duff, the chief executive of Zenith, said: ’To say that I am
delighted would be an understatement.
This win is a fantastic endorsement of our existing buying pedigree and
our strategic planning credentials.’
Sanders added: ’Zenith produced compelling reasons as to why the
planning assignment should be added to its buying role.’
Zenith has handled the media buying for Rover since it was founded, but
traditionally the planning has remained with the creative agency. In
1996, Zenith clinched the centralised media account for BMW and Rover
following BMW’s acquisition of Rover in 1994. The incumbent on BMW was
Initiative Media.
An advertising campaign to promote Rover’s new mass- and mid-market
models - the 25 and 45 - will kick off in the next few weeks and will be
crucial to the car company’s future success.
