Agencies vie for Furniture Village 6m

Retailer Furniture Village has begun a search for an advertising agency to handle its 6m account.

The retailer is understood to have compiled a list of agencies and will be drawing up a shortlist of three within the week.

All the company’s advertising has so far been carried out in-house.

Furniture Village managing director Peter Harrison and head of marketing Kevin Boast are conducting the search.

Boast says: “The company is expanding and we need to take on an advertising agency.”

The new agency will be ex pected to produce advertisements for television, print, posters and radio.

Furniture Village has 18 stores in the UK, based in London and the South East. The company plans to open four stores a year.

Last October, it bought a flagship store in London’s Tottenham Court Road from the Maples furniture retail group, which went into receivership.

Most of the remainder of the Maples stores were sold by receivers Deloitte & Touche to Allders for 3.8m last year.

Analysts agree that the furniture market is going through a period of consolidation.

Players in the market are trying to differentiate their products from each other, either by developing new product ranges or through advertising campaigns.