Leith Agency lands £40m Honda Europe business

The Leith Agency has seized a &£40m slice of Honda business by becoming Honda Motor Europe’s (HME) lead agency in France, Italy and Spain.

The move puts Leith in a strong position to pick up the pan European account for Honda’s next-generation Civic model. An announcement is expected in a month’s time.

Leith beat three networks – believed to include Grey and BDDO – to the HME South account, which is worth up to &£40m.

The Edinburgh-based agency opened a London office at the beginning of the year and created a string of alliances with Euro pean agencies in order to handle pan-European accounts (MW January 20).

Ailleurs Exactement in France and Ata de Martini in Italy – Leith’s agency partners – will be responsible for the work generated for their own market and will work together on pan-regional campaigns.

A Leith planning team will be based in Ailleurs Exactement’s office in Paris and UK based directors will oversee pan-regional campaigns.

Leith’s appointment means it is almost certain of a place on pitch-lists for major pan-European product launches. The agency won the &£10m launch of the Honda H-RV “Joy machine” car in 1998 as an outside agency.

HME South marketing manager Tito Schiaffino says: “It was clear that Leith is able to co-ordinate a network on our behalf.”

Honda European advertising manager Chris Brown is overseeing the Civic business and will see pitches from Leith and Honda’s UK agency CDP.