NEWS: Abbott Mead picks up pounds 15m Prudential prize

Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO has taken less than a month to plug the gap on

its roster left by the Leeds building society by capturing the

Prudential’s pounds 15 million business.

The win is a huge consolation prize for the agency, which lost to Bates

Dorland in the race for the pounds 26 million account of the merged

Leeds and Halifax building societies (Campaign, 15 December 1995).

This week the Prudential confirmed it was switching to Abbott Mead,

having been initially rebuffed by the agency while the Halifax contest

was taking place.

When the result of the Halifax pitch reached the Prudential UK’s

managing director, Keith Bedell-Pearce, who was in Australia, he asked

Mike Tildesley, his head of marketing communications, to re-establish

contact.

The switch brings down the curtain on the Prudential’s fling with Mustoe

Merriman Herring Levy, which landed the account amid a fanfare in

September 1994. Nick Mustoe, the Mustoe Merriman chief executive, said

the loss of the Pru had been expected for several months and that no

redundancies would be necessary.

‘We’re disappointed the Prudential is going but we understand why, given

the personal relationships with Abbott Mead,’ he added.

The main task for Abbott Mead, which will reveal its first work in the

second quarter of the year, will be to strengthen the Prudential brand

within the crowded financial services sector.

Bedell-Smith is known to have been happy with Mustoe Merriman’s print

work but was concerned that the brand awareness being generated by the

TV campaign was not matching the investment.

Andrew Robertson, the Abbott Mead managing director, who renews a

relationship with Bedell-Smith forged at WCRS, said the agency would not

switch its Leeds team en masse on to the Prudential account.

‘We will be mixing and matching,’ he said.

Media remains with Pattison Horswell Durden.

This article was first published on Campaign