Carat to lose £13m Churchill work
Churchill Insurance Group is to review its £12.6m media planning and buying account, held by Carat, following the financial group’s £1.1bn acquisition by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) last week. The account is expected to be awarded to RBS’s roster media agency, MediaCom, without a formal pitch.
RBS has a strategy of maintaining separate brands with their own creative agencies, but all media buying and planning for the group’s businesses is centralised through MediaCom. An RBS spokeswoman confirms that she expects Churchill’s media work to move to MediaCom.
Following the announcement of the purchase of Churchill – from Credit Suisse Group – last week, RBS group chief executive Fred Goodwin confirmed that job losses would run into the hundreds but not thousands. RBS says it is too early to say whether this will include marketing redundancies. RBS already owns Direct Line, a key competitor of Churchill. It has indicated that the administrative functions of the two brands will be combined.
The combination of Churchill and Direct Line, two of the country’s best known insurance brands, makes RBS the UK’s third-largest general insurer, behind Norwich Union and Royal & Sun Alliance. Churchill has greater strength in home insurance, while Direct Line is the market leader in motor insurance.
This week, Churchill launches its first e-mail marketing drive in a campaign devised by AWA3D.
