NEWS: BBH wins top Elida Faberge brands

Bartle Bogle Hegarty has snatched the UK creative accounts for three

Elida Faberge brands worth pounds 6 million. The wins are: Salon

Selectives from BMP4, Lynx Skin Systeme from Ammirati Puris Lintas and

Pears Soap from J. Walter Thompson.

BBH was awarded the accounts by Elida Faberge’s brand development

director, Simon Clift, following its appointment in June 1995 to handle

the launch of the fragrance, Addiction, and a branding campaign for

Lynx.

Unilever, which owns Elida Gibbs, operates a ‘club agency’ system,

whereby the majority of its work is handled by JWT, Ogilvy and Mather,

McCann-Erickson and APL.

The BBH coup suggests that Unilever’s marketers want to exercise their

freedom to shun internationally aligned roster shops and appoint local

agencies.

However, no formal notification had reached some of the losing agencies

as Campaign went to press.

At O&M, which announced in July that it had won Salon Selectives in the

UK following Unilever’s acquisition of the parent brand, Helene Curtis,

managing director, Tom Bury, said: ‘Our understanding is that BBH has

been working on a project basis for Salon Selectives. Our contract

starts in January 1997. I don’t know whether there is a global exception

for the UK.’

Virginia Creer, the joint managing director of BMP4, commented: ‘We have

had no official notification, but we know the story is true.’

BBH’s group director, Julian Martin, said: ‘Our relationship with Elida

Faberge in the UK has evolved from a single project to five ongoing

brands in little more than a year.’

Unilever is likely to channel most of the pounds 6 million spend - up to

pounds 3 million - into updating the image of Salon Selectives - a range

of haircare products that is best-known for an infamous jingle which is

likely to be killed off.

New advertising for Pears Soap, the oldest soap brand in the world which

was launched in 1789, will focus on the soap’s original image.

Pears Soap last advertised on TV in the early 80s, but has confined

itself to low-spend brand advertising for product variants in recent

years.

Media for all three brands remains with Unilever’s media buyer,

Initiative Media.

This article was first published on Campaign