Leo Burnett wins VSO brief

Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) has appointed the Leo Burnett Group to its £1m advertising business. VSO, the international development charity that places British volunteers on projects to tackle poverty in the developing world, saw pitch

Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) has appointed the Leo Burnett Group to its &£1m advertising business.

VSO, the international development charity that places British volunteers on projects to tackle poverty in the developing world, saw pitches from the Leo Burnett Group, M&C Saatchi, Roose & Partners and incumbent direct marketing agency Associates in Advertising. Burkitt DDB, creative incumbent on the account, did not repitch.

Various parts of the Burnett group pitched for the account, including its below-the-line agency, Leonardo, its Web outfit, Hard Reality, and its PR arm, MS&L. The review is believed to have been conducted through the AAR.

Burkitt DDB handled VSO’s brand awareness campaigns and Associates in Advertising carried out the charity’s high-volume direct response recruitment ad work. Burkitt DDB has worked on the account since 1996, after the charity parted company with Bean MC.

But VSO communications director Matthew Bell decided to review the account, concentrating the advertising spend into one shop in order to integrate the campaigns and create cost savings (MW September 21).

Bell recently paid tribute to the work Burkitt DDB carried out for the charity in a letter to Marketing Week: “The creative contribution of the team at Burkitt DDB, in particular, has given VSO a new energy and currency. It is hard to imagine many agencies having achieved so much on such a low budget.”

The agency created copylines such as “Business advisors wanted: company bicycle included”, for a recruitment campaign that was designed to be hard-hitting but at the same time humorous.

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