Ogilvy & Mather wins global Philips business

The agency picked up the business following a final shootout against TBWA. DDB, the previous incumbent on the account, was eliminated at an earlier stage.

O&M, which ran the pitch out of its London office with contributions from international partners, will now be responsible for overseeing all strategic and creative integrated communications for Philips across the globe. The work will put a strong emphasis on innovation and digital activity.

Laura Ashton (pictured), head of marketing for Philips Lighting in emerging markets, says the switch to Philips came after a four-month review of its creative account. "Philips has selected Ogilvy & Mather to become the company’s global lead creative agency from January 1, 2012," she told Campaign. "In this capacity, Ogilvy will handle all strategic and creative marketing communications development across all Philips sectors and businesses, globally."

Earlier this year, Philips also ran a separate review of its media planning and buying account. Ashton said this review concluded in November this year, with a combination of Carat and MPG winning the business. "Philips has decided to continue its relationship with Carat as the global strategic media agency partner across all business sectors and the corporate organisation. Carat will continue to provide local media agency services in Asia-Pacific and some other geographies."

Philips will also begin a new partnership with MPG in some markets, namely the Americas, France, and Southern Europe.

Chris Reitermann, president of Ogilvy & Mather China, said the win will mean a great deal of work for his team in the region. "Our China work represented 50 per cent of the global pitch, and I believe we showed the great power of the Ogilvy network in the process," he said. "We demonstrated we can do great global work and culturally relevant work in major emerging markets in the process."

DDB had been the incumbent on Philips' creative account since 2001, during which time it had created a number of award-winning campaigns. These included the "carousel" and "parallel lines" online films, which won Cannes Grand Prix in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

More recently, the network oversaw Philips’ "obsessed with sound" campaign, which was fronted by Liam Gallagher and aimed to promote the brand’s audio range.

This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk