BBC jettisons plan to pour advertising into one agency

The BBC is understood to have rejected a plan to pool all its advertising accounts in one agency.

At the moment, the BBC uses six main agencies for its 6m ad spend, though this does not include the account for BBC Worldwide.

Now sources suggest that the BBC has considered a plan to consolidate all of its advertising into one agency.

“It would certainly make life easier if there were only one agency. However, we are not in the business of making life easier but aiming to get the best results for our bucks,” says the BBC’s head of corporate and brand marketing, Jane Frost.

“I have always been an advocate of smaller rather than larger rosters of agencies.”

The comments come after confusion arose last week about Leagas Delaney and its place on the BBC roster. The agency was hired to produce a campaign for BBC2 which reportedly was not given the go-ahead by the client amid speculation that the agency might lose its place on the BBC roster.

Frost says there has been no change in the status of Leagas Delaney’s relationship with the BBC and it is still a BBC roster agency.