Media Business Group near to 5m motor brief

The Media Business Group is tipped to pick up the 5m media buying and planning business for the Appleyard Motor Group.

The account was formerly held by Barkers Scotland. Appleyard, the country’s largest new and used car dealer, trades under a number of regional dealership names such as Ian Skelly, Dougherty’s, Minories and Cloverleaf.

Appleyard is a labour intensive account, based mainly on regional and national press buying, TV and radio.

It is unknown if any other agencies pitched for the business. The Media Business has declined to comment. The creative account is understood to be staying with Barkers.

Appleyard realigned some of its franchises in March this year, changing some to Toyota Hyundai and Fiat. The group is known to be concerned about the progress of some of its Japanese franchises and these are expected to get the attention of its marketing spend.

The company called the police in to investigate an accounting fraud in its Manchester offices earlier this year. The fraud had caused it to overstate its profits by 1.03m.