NEWS: JWT Manchester beats BMP to scoop pounds 4.5m ATS task

J. Walter Thompson Manchester has beaten off competition from BMP DDB

Needham to pick up the pounds 4.5 million ad account for Associated Tyre

Specialists.

London-based ATS is the biggest tyre distributor and second largest

fast-fit company in Britain. It has 540 centres around the UK, which

sell batteries, exhausts, brakes and MOT tests, as well as tyres.

It had used the Leith Agency for its advertising for the past six years,

until an acrimonious split this summer provoked the two-month review.

This began with a four-way creative and strategic pitch, based on a 12-

month view of the industry, between JWT Manchester, BMP, McCann-Erickson

Birmingham and another agency which is local to ATS’s Birmingham-based

marketing department.

A further round of pitches, this time between the finalists, BMP and JWT

Manchester, took a strategic view, well beyond the 12-month period

quoted in the original brief.

JWT Manchester’s chief executive, Andrew Stothert, was delighted with

the win, which draws on the experience the agency garnered from its past

relationship with National Tyres - another leading tyre specialist. He

said: ‘Retail is in our blood, so we are delighted to add a major retail

account such as ATS to our growing list of retail accounts.’ Media

remains with the Media Shop.

The win comes only a week after JWT Manchester picked up Provincial

Insurance’s pounds 1 million advertising account, and is the latest in a

string of wins for the agency, according to its business development

director, Grant Mercer. It rounds off a good run for the Manchester

shop, which claims it has put on an extra pounds 11 million in billings

over the past four months.

This article was first published on Campaign