25m Domecq goes to Optimedia

Zenith has lost the 6m media planning and buying for Allied Domecq Spirits & Wine to Optimedia as part of a 25m European media centralisation.

The pitch, first revealed by Marketing Week (April 14), involved a head-to-head pitch between the two agencies for the centralised European media planning and buying account.

Zenith won Domecq in 1990, when it was combined with Carlsberg-Tetley beer. In 1995 Domecq, whose brands include Gordon’s Gin, Teacher’s Whisky and Tia Maria, centralised its west European media buying into Optimedia following a pitch against Zenith, but Zenith kept the account in the UK.

The centralisation brings the central and eastern European business into the agency.

It is the latest in a string of new business wins for Optimedia. Last week it won the 16m Millennium Dome media account and the week before Marketing Week revealed it had won the media planning and buying for British Airways’s new low-cost airline service, estimated to be worth about 20m (MW August 21).

Domecq was unavailable for comment when Marketing Week went to press.