Santo scoops Coke brief

by Kunal Dutta, Campaign 15-May-08, 10:15

LONDON - Coca-Cola has hired Santo London, the Argentinian creative hotshop backed by WPP, to handle advertising for its sponsorship of the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa.

The agency will create a global campaign ahead of the tournament that will run across TV, press, outdoor,
ambient and digital in more than 100 markets worldwide.

The campaign will be created out of Santo's London office, which opened last month.

Santo is in the process of hiring teams to service the account, which will be overseen by Pablo Minces, Santo's creative director, and Martin Cole, a former WPP consultant and now a managing partner at the agency.

The appointment was made by Jonathan Mildenhall, the vice-president of global advertising for Coca-Cola.

Santo has handled football campaigns for the brand out of its Buenos Aires office in the past, including creating advertising for this summer's Uefa European Football Championship in Switzerland and Austria.

Coca-Cola's advertising for the last World Cup in 2006 was created by Wieden & Kennedy Amsterdam.

The agency stopped working on football-related briefs after it won the global account in 2006, but will create advertising to promote Coca-Cola's sponsorship of this year's Olympic Games in Beijing.

Cole said: "We're delighted to be working with Coca-Cola again on football, this time for the 2010 Fifa World Cup campaign.

"Delivering a campaign of this importance, that could run all over the world, is a huge opportunity for our agency."