Two agencies land UKPlus £3m account

Associated New Media, the online arm of Associated Newspapers, has handed the &£3m account for its UKPlus search engine to Elliott Bora Perlmutter and Optimedia.

The two agencies, which pitched as a “virtual agency” following successes on Marks & Spencer food accounts this year, will launch a TV, press, radio and online campaign for UKPlus in December. The agencies pitched jointly, with Optimedia presenting media solutions to match EBP’s creative ideas.

Team Saatchi, Equinox, and BMP DDB and BMP OMD – which won the &£3m launch for Associated’s Charlotte Street.com women-focused site last week – also pitched.

The UKPlus campaign aims to make its Website the favoured search page for a target audience that mirrors the middle-market readership of Associated Newspapers’ Daily Mail.

A source says: “We want to make UKPlus the family-oriented, middle-England route to the Internet.”

Advertising for the site, which launched in 1997, will focus on attracting customers previously put off the Internet by its high-tech image, particularly parents who are being pushed by their Net-savvy children to get online. It claims to attract 20 million page views per month.

EBP and Optimedia have expanded their business on Marks & Spencer’s foods and wines following their handling of a summer foods campaign. (MW June 3).