Pitches for the £55 million Argos account have been taking place this week. The review, managed by AAR and prompted by the arrival of the new marketing director, Stephen Vowles, kicked off in December and put the incumbent, CHI & Partners, on alert. Agencies including Now, Publicis and Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R are battling CHI to secure the brief.
At least Argos seems to be sticking to its three-month review window, which is more than can be said for British Airways. When BA originally announced the review out of Bartle Bogle Hegarty, its tight schedule promised that the brief would be in October, the pitch in November and a result in January. It is now the end of February and none of the agencies competing – BBH, Ogilvy and SapientNitro – seems any the wiser.
The media pitch for the Smart Meter Central Delivery Body’s £85 million four-year campaign is going to get interesting. It has emerged that agencies working for any of the "big six" energy companies aren’t able to take part, which rules out a lot of shops, including Carat, Havas Media, Maxus, MediaCom and OMD.
And finally… tissue meetings for The Royal British Legion pitch, involving BMB, M&C Saatchi and RKCR/Y&R, have begun.
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