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Media Planning Group has grabbed the pan-European media planning

and buying account for Yves Saint Laurent Beaute after the Gucci-owned

cosmetics group pulled its business out of OMD UK earlier this year.

Media Planning picked up the £28 million account, which is worth

£4 million annually in the UK, after a pitch against an

undisclosed number of agencies.

The company has refused to comment on its reasons for dropping OMD in

April.

The decision to drop OMD and appoint Media Planning to the account was

taken by YSL Beaute's Paris office, where the company's president,

Chantal Roos, and its marketing director, Laurent Houel, are based.

The agency change follows a period of transition in the UK marketing

department, with Graeme Bralsford being brought in from Elizabeth Arden

to head the marketing department.

The appointment is not expected to lead to a rearrangement of YSL

Beaute's creative arrangements, which are handled in-house.

Gucci's creative director, Tom Ford, leads the creative team

himself.

Ford was responsible for the Opium poster, featuring a provocatively

posed Sophie Dahl, that the Advertising Standards Authority ordered to

be taken down earlier this year.

In addition to Opium, YSL Beaute operates brands such as Oscar de la

Renta Perfume, Rive Gauche, Live Jass, Roger & Gallet soap and the Yves

Saint Laurent make-up range. Gucci acquired the company from Sanofi

Beaute in 1999 as part of the Italian luxury goods giant's bid to become

a viable global competitor to France's Louis Vuitton-Moet Hennessy.