Publicis in 4m Scots utility win

Publicis has won the 4m advertising account for Scottish electricity company Hydro-Electric.

A new campaign is expected to promote the utility’s expansion south of the border.

It is understood a TV push, which has a sizeable production budget, is in research.

The TV ads are expected to run in England and Scotland in the run-up to electricity deregulation, scheduled for September.

Publicis won the account in a secret pitch just eight months after Glasgow agency The Morgan Partnership was appointed following a pitch in April 1997. But Morgan parted company with Hydro-Electric in December.

Hydro-Electric’s then head of energy marketing, Dr Pauline Creasey, has been replaced by Peter Elford, a former consultant.

He confirms Publicis’ appointment but refuses to give any more details than “we are working on a number of things at the moment”.

No one from Hydro-Electric would comment further, nor would Morgan comment on why it lost the business.

Hydro-Electric has more than 650,000 customers north of the River Tay.