Britain’s third largest supermarket chain has turned to Blue Rubicon to promote its core food offering, while specialist food and drinks agency Phipps PR has been awarded the beers, wines and spirits account.
In a separate brief put out through Sainsbury’s corporate PR team, Blue Rubicon has also picked up the business to support the supermarket chain during Fairtrade Fortnight.
In addition, a project brief for Comic Relief 2011 has been handed to Taylor Herring. For Sainsbury’s tenth year of involvement with Comic Relief, the entertainment specialist will be working on a three-month brief to raise awareness of the partnership and exclusive merchandise.
Cake has previously supported Sainsbury’s across all consumer PR activities on a project basis. The retained accounts with Blue Rubicon and Phipps are set to begin in April and will run initially for 12 months, while the project with Taylor Herring has begun with immediate effect.
All of the accounts weresecured following individual pitches.
Sainbury’s has since been working to realign its PR department and use focused agencies to function alongside various business units.
Cath Wilkins, PR manager, grocery, beer, wine and spirits, said: ‘As our business continues to expand, we will need more focused consumer agency support.’
Mark Rigby, director of comms for Sainsbury’s, said: ‘We continue to invest in our business across all categories. The appointment of this roster of agencies is an important element of our commitment to ensure our customers understand the value and quality of our offering, as well as the values that make us differing as a retailer.’
Sainsbury’s continues to use Modus Publicity and Camron PR for consumer support on its clothing and homewares offerings respectively.
