BBH wins £6m women’s Net venture

Bartle Bogle Hegarty has beaten Saatchi & Saatchi to the &£6m advertising account for women’s advice Website Ready2.com.

Ready2.com, to be launched in February, will advise 25- to 50-year-old women on high-street fashion, health, weddings, divorce and children.

Set up by fashion journalists Susannah Constantine and Trinny Woodall, who write the “Ready to wear” style page in the Daily Telegraph and appear on the This Morning TV show with Richard and Judy, Ready2.com was “founded by women for women”.

Constantine and Woodall have secured a &£5m investment from venture capitalist Atlas and US fund JH Whitney, &£2m of which is allocated to the ad budget.

Woodall says the duo are negotiating a &£20m cash injection with undisclosed investors. Details will be finalised in April, although it is understood &£4m will be spent on ads.

Ready2.com, which this week appointed Priscilla Bushway of Bank Boston as managing director, will compete in a crowded market against sites such as Handbag, a joint venture between Boots and the Telegraph, Associated Newspapers’ Charlotte Street, EMAP’s New Women Online, IPC Electric and National Magazine Company-owner Hearst’s soon to be launched women.com.

The Ready2.com campaign starts in January, with teaser poster ads preceding the full launch.

Media will be through BBH’s media arm Motive.

Woodall says: “It will illustrate what is different about us – we think emotionally.”

Woodall and Constantine are also in discussions about launching their own TV series.