Lowe Lintas has secured the £11 million UK Burger King
above-the-line account following last week's news that the company had
been seeing rival agencies.
The fast-food chain had started talks with Agency Insight about the UK
account.
Burger King UK and Eire's marketing director, Philip Almond, this week
confirmed Lowe's status as agency of record. "There has been no review -
there is no review. Lowe Lintas remains our UK agency," he said.
However, it is understood that Bates UK and Delaney Lund Knox Warren &
Partners were among those agencies that began submitting
credentials.
Lowe's chief executive, Chris Thomas, commented: "We have a very strong
relationship with Burger King and look forward to continuing working
with it in the future."
Rumours had been circulating regarding Lowe's grip on the UK account
since the agency lost the £280 million Burger King US task to
fellow IPG network McCann-Erickson Worldwide in January this year.
The loss of the UK advertising account was said to have been narrowly
averted by the intervention of Paul Hammersley, the then chief executive
of the London office. Hammersley has since relocated to New York to run
Lowe Lintas & Partners North America.
In April, Burger King announced that it was considering a substantial
shake-up of its international marketing operations following the
appointment of Chris Clouser as global chief marketing officer and
executive vice-president.
This restructuring aimed to bring about more centralisation of Burger
King's marketing operations, which at the time it was thought could lead
to more ads from the US being shown in the UK.