Walkers, owned by Pepsi-Co, is believed to have called the review on the basis of potential cost savings involved in moving its account into an Omnicom agency.
The account had been held by the now Publicis Groupe owned MediaVest, which was previously part of Bcom3.
The move of the UK media-buying account is effectively a consolidation of its global advertising and media business. OMD already handles the account in the US and sister Omnicom agency BBDO handles the brand's global creative business with Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO handling the UK advertising.
Walkers is most famous for its long-running advertising campaign for its crisps starring football presenter and former England captain Gary Lineker, originally devised by BMP BBDO in 1995, but continued with AMV BBDO after Pepsi-Co centralised its advertising into Omnicom in 1998. The review covered all of Walkers brands.
Neil Campbell, vice-president of marketing for Walkers, said: "We operate in a very competitive market and have made our decision to move to OMD following a very rigorous review process."
Walkers is the biggest crisp brand in the UK with sales four times that of its nearest rival, Procter & Gamble's Pringles. It has sales of nearly 拢490 million a year, which equates to 11 million packs sold daily.
Work on the account begins on January 1, 2003. It follows a successful month for OMD, which has seen it pick up work from Siemens and Sony already.
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