Lowe under pressure as Vauxhall seeks agency

Vauxhall Motors, the UK arm of car company General Motors (GM), is seeking another advertising agency to work alongside its incumbent, Lowe.

The news will be a blow to Lowe, which has struggled to come up with a brand positioning campaign since its unpopular Griff Rhys-Jones ads were axed last year (MW April 12, 2001)

The car company claims that any appointment will not affect Lowe’s status as lead agency. Lowe is part of Interpublic, which holds the bulk of GM’s global business.

The search is being overseen by Vauxhall’s marketing director Dean Barrett, and being handled by the AAR. No shortlist has been drawn up as yet.

Barrett claims that Vauxhall is seeking another agency because of the volume of work and projects the marketing department is undertaking.

The relaunch of its mid-sized Vectra is the company’s only major project this year. Lowe has already created the campaign for the Vectra, which goes on sale in June. Vauxhall has no other launches this year.

The company says that it is not aiming to split car models between the incumbent and new agency. Vauxhall’s marketing communications manager Patrick Dunstar adds: “There are no specific briefs out there for the new agency, they will be working on brand positioning.”

Dunstar adds that the agency will create TV advertising for Vauxhall.