Saudi Basic Industries Corporation appoints Interpublic Group for global work

The brief, believed to be one of the biggest in the world and worth a significant seven-figure annual sum, will see Interpublic-owned Weber Shandwick among those supporting all areas of comms.

The decision follows an extensive six-month, competitive review process in which SABIC invited IPG, Omnicom, Publicis and WPP to participate.

Work was previously with WPP, primarily with Hill + Knowlton Strategies.

Samir Al-Abdrabbuh, SABIC vice-president corporate comms, said: ‘While all invited global agencies are respected leaders of the field in their own right, a fair and rigorous technical and commercial evaluation and procurement process resulted in the selection of IPG as SABIC’s strategic global communications agency partner, "one stop shop" and the team best positioned to take us to the next level; strengthening and leveraging our brand worldwide.’

He added: ‘We have very high expectations as we seek to power our communications strategies to tell the SABIC story in a powerful and compelling way across the globe. Interpublic presented a strong consolidated business approach that will serve our entire spectrum of communications activities.’

Michael Roth, chairman and CEO of IPG said: ‘We are honoured that SABIC has decided to place its trust in our ability to deliver the highest standard of communications services on a global basis. We will be providing our services through a new IPG strategic business unit that reports to me with core strategic services accessing the best of talent across the group.

'Key staff for this new unit will come from McCann Worldgroup’s business-to-business specialist McCann Enterprise and Weber Shandwick among others.  This will bring SABIC best-in-class agency talent, coupled with strong resources easily accessible wherever they are in the world on a 24/7 basis. The whole team is thrilled with the win after such a comprehensive and competitive process and we look forward to kicking off the work.’

SABIC announced its intention to put the account up for review in July 2012, when it invited the four largest global agency groups that met specific criteria to participate in the process.

This article was first published on prweek.com