Carat wins £30m Alliance & Leicester media account

by Mark Banham, Brand Republic 27-Sep-06, 08:50

LONDON - Carat has scooped the consolidated £30m media planning and buying account for Alliance & Leicester in a final pitch against MediaVest Manchester.

The agency previously only handled the £3m press buying for the advertiser, with MediaVest tasked with the television, direct marketing, inserts and planning business.

The Aegis-owned agency has also picked up the online business from search specialists Latitude.

The review covered all media, including directories advertising, door-to-door and paid search.

Carat's appointment is the first time the bank has consolidated its media duties into one agency.

The bank had previously reviewed its media in 2004 and had retained MediaVest Manchester, while adding Carat to the roster.

Creative duties on the account are split between McCann Erickson and Big Communications.

Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank is currently promoting its Free Business current account with a direct campaign targeting small businesses.

In February, the advertiser constructed a digital customer relationship marketing strategy across all of its retail financial products after the appointment of digital marketing agency Inbox Digital.

Alliance & Leicester handles £20.6bn worth of customer accounts and has £3.5bn in personal loans and 1.5m active current accounts.

Lesley Vernon, head of marketing communications at Alliance & Leicester, said: "Carat has demonstrated to us time and time again that they can deliver on press and now we're confident they will deliver even stronger results running our entire media buying arrangements."

"We believe our decision to consolidate all our activity into one agency will deliver significant benefits in terms of integrated media planning, and Carat have the capability to help take our marketing strategy forward."

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