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Johannesburg - TBWA Hunt Lascaris has won the Steers restaurant account in a five-way pitch against Young & Rubicam, Ireland Davenport, KingJames and FoxP2. The agency, which seemed to be in the doldrums a year ago, has made a strong comeback in 2009.
With a new group MD, Gavin Heron, at the helm, TBWA was the top SA agency at the Cannes Advertising Festival in June. But it has backed this up with some strong new-business acquisitions, probably billing well over R100m.
Steers spent R50m on media advertising last year, according to The Nielsen Company's Adex, a similar amount to competitors like Spur (R56m) and Wimpy (R66m). But even bigger was the pan-African Glo cellular telephone network account. There were also the acquisition of Visa, a global realignment, and some additional Tiger Brands work.
"Steers is probably one of the sexiest accounts to win in terms of the potential it offers for exciting work," says executive creative director Damon Stapleton. "We believed that to do justice to the brand we needed to deliver a solution that embraced social, mobile and digital media."
Steers marketing executive Charmaine Ellis says she wanted an innovative solution. "The agency presented an idea that leverages Steers' iconic status but still feels totally innovative and fresh."
- Fin24.com
