Red Brick Road to pick up £9m Thomas Cook ad account

by Darren Davidson, Brand Republic 01-Oct-08, 09:00

LONDON - Thomas Cook is tipped to award its £9m advertising account to the Red Brick Road following a competitive pitch.

The pitch, which was overseen by agency search consultants Oystercatchers, consolidated all of the Thomas Cook brands including the eponymous brand, Airtours, Going Places, Direct Holidays, Thomas Cook Signature, Cruise Thomas Cook, Panorama, Manos and Cresta.

The incumbents were invited to re-pitch alongside a number of unnamed agencies, but it is not known if they did.

Company of Angels handled the Thomas Cook brand, while Clear Marketing worked on the MyTravel account.

The pitch was kicked off in June and came comes after Thomas Cook merged with MyTravel last year. It also owns the Hotels4U.com booking website, which it paid £21m for last February.

Just this week, German retail and tourism group Arcandor rejected suggestions that it could sell its stake in travel company Thomas Cook in the near term.

The group owns a 52% stake in Thomas Cook and earlier this week issued a statement saying it had decided not to sell the travel company.