The pitch will see UK incumbent OMD fight it out against Carat, which handles media in France, Germany, Ireland and Sweden, and MindShare, which handles media for Vodafone in Italy.
Last year, Vodafone had been reported to be reviewing the £40m UK media account ahead of a consolidation of its £250m global planning and buying arrangements into a single network. In the end, the UK pitch never went ahead and has been included as part of the overall European review.
Mindshare's sister WPP Group agency J Walter Thompson was last year appointed as Vodafone's global creative network and has since continued to strengthen its position.
Yesterday, JWT won Vodafone's UK retail advertising account, which is estimated to be worth around £13m.
MindShare might face a potential conflict from its pan-European Hutchison 3G account, which it picked up in January 2002.
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