BBH holds on to £3m Gordon’s

Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) has retained the &£3m Gordon’s Gin creative account. Guinness UDV had called a review of the business just over a year after appointing the agency.

The drinks company says it decided to continue its relationship with BBH following “conversations” with a number of other creative agencies, including Delaney Lund Knox Warren, Saatchi & Saatchi and Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy.

Brand director Wendy Darlington says: “BBH has demonstrated a determination and commitment to Gordon’s which has resulted in an outstanding creative idea which we are very excited about.”

The agency originally won the business in June last year, breaking Leo Burnett’s 12-year hold on the account. BBH also handles creative work for Guinness UDV’s Johnnie Walker whisky brand.

A press campaign for Gordon’s, created by BBH last autumn, featured attempts by celebrities to do things they are not famous for.

Cricketer David Gower and Olympic rower Matthew Pinsent were shown trying their hand at writing poetry and sculpting clay pots.

The ads, which were targeted at regular gin drinkers aged 40-plus, marked a shift in strategy for the brand: in the mid-Nineties Gordon’s Gin attempted to woo the youth market with its up-beat ads.

While Gordon’s has lost market share in recent years – mainly because of increased competition from supermarkets’ own-label gins – it still holds 40 per cent of the UK gin market.