Alitalia: Announced a worldwide review of its advertising last year Alitalia account goes to O&M

Alitalia has awarded its $30m (£20m) worldwide advertising account to Ogilvy & Mather, after a competitive pitch in

Rome involving seven agencies.

The troubled Italian, state-owned airline announced a review of its worldwide advertising in September last year, with the intention of putting all its ad budget into one basket.

It was suggested at the time that Alitalia was looking to advertise heavily before planned privatisation in 1996 and that it wanted to model itself on BA’s marketing communications programme.

The other agencies on the pitch list were: JWT, McCann-Erickson, DMB&B, Armando Testa, SP Lintas and Pirella Gottsche Lowe.

Domestic advertising in Italy was handled by JWT and Publicis FCB MAC, although it was taken in-house during 1994.

In the UK, Alitalia was spending £1m through Focus.

Alitalia lost $214m (£141m) in 1993. It appointed new management, including Giovanni Mantica, senior vice president for advertising and former head of the Italian arm of international research company AC Nielsen. Since then, the airline has implemented stringent cost-cutting measures.