AMV beats four to 16m Wrangler jeans account

Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO has won the 16m pan-European account for Wrangler jeans, beating Lowe Howard-Spink, GGT, Duckworth Finn Grubb Waters and incumbent agency TBWA to the business.

The media planning and buying account, held by CIA Medianetwork across Europe, is unaffected by the creative review.

The appointment of AMV comes after research by the company on pitch proposals from AMV, GGT and DFGW after it dropped LH-S and TBWA.

The appointment follows the departure of Wrangler’s European marketing director Juan Munoz two months ago, who headed the search for a new agency. He was replaced by David Smith, who joined from his post as head of US consumer marketing at sister jeans maker Lee.

The company’s most recent campaign, “Every picture tells a story”, was created for TBWA Europe by the Los Angeles office of its subsidiary Chiat Day.

“Of the agencies we saw, AMV provided us with the best strategic thinking and the creative solution we were most comfortable with,” says Smith.

“It told us to remain true to our brand values. One of the challenges was to make sure that Wrangler retained an authentic western and contemporary appeal.”

Germany and the UK make up about 80 per cent of Wrangler’s European sales by volume; Levi’s is European market leader with 25 per share. In the UK, Wrangler has an 8.2 per cent share of the jeans market, according to Nielsen figures.

Perhaps Wrangler’s best-known advertising featured supermodel Paula Abbott in a spoof of the film City Slickers. The ad led to a surge in sales of the jeans to women, though there was some suggestion that this was at the expense of sales to men.