Six month period of uncertainty over Tampax PR

Darwall Smith Associates may have to wait up to six months before

it finds out whether it will hold on to the Tampax PR account.

The future of the account, which is among the agency’s three largest,

was put into question two weeks ago when brand-owner Tambrands was

acquired by Procter and Gamble for pounds 1.6 billion.

P&G handles public relations for its existing sanitary protection

product - Always panty liners - in-house.

Lucy Darwall-Smith, managing director of DSA, told PR Week: ’We’ve been

handling consumer PR for Tambrands since 1985 and are very close to the

client, but there’s no news as yet as to what will happen once the

acquisition is completed, we are obviously hoping it will be business as

usual.’

The deal still has to get clearance from the anti-trust authorities in

the US. Procter and Gamble director of corporate affairs Dick Johnson

said: ’It may take anything between three and six months before the deal

goes through, so we can’t comment on any implications of the takeover at

the moment.’