Roose snatches £8m Mitsubishi from RPM
Troubled Japanese car manufacturer Mitsubishi Motors has handed its UK account to Roose & Partners. Its first work will be the launch of the Carisma range in August.
The agency won in a pitch against Bates Dorland, Mitchell Patterson Aldred Grimes and incumbent RPM3.
The manufacturer has suffered poor sales in the UK, resulting in staff losses. It has cut 70 of its 300 UK posts, including its managing director, sales director and marketing director Colin Pierce. Marketing manager Philip Price now handles day-to-day marketing.
The company’s advertising budget is understood to have been slashed from &£14m to &£8m. Mitsubishi had been a key account for RPM3, although the agency replaced it in May when it snatched furniture retailer Courts’ &£13m business from Lowe Howard-Spink.
This was the second shortlist the manufacturer had put together after Fallon McElligott, M&C Saatchi and St Luke’s pulled out when the extent of the company’s problems, and the reduced budget, became clear.
Roose will form a partnership with Mitsubishi’s Japanese-based agency Asatsu, which works for the manufacturer across Europe, and in most parts of the world.
Roose chairman Ted Roose says: “Asatsu has not taken a stake in this company. There is only one person in this company who can agree that, and that’s me. And I have not agreed to that.
“But we have formed a partnership where we will share relevant work where appropriate.”
Mitsubishi is replacing its ten-year-old Diamond Used Car Scheme with a new brand identity, “Red Zebra”, in an effort to set it apart from other manufacturers’ used car dealerships. Marketing and design agency Basten Greenhill Andrews has created a red striped logo, to be displayed in showrooms and on forecourts.
