Joshua takes Masterfoods £3m pet care

Masterfoods has appointed Joshua to handle the £3.3m UK direct marketing business for its pet care brands. The company spends £17m above the line advertising its pet foods in the UK.

Masterfoods has appointed Joshua to handle the £3.3m UK direct marketing business for its pet care brands. The company spends £17m above the line advertising its pet foods in the UK.

Joshua was the incumbent on dog foods Pedigree and Cesar but cat foods Whiskas and Sheba will move over from Proximity London. Joshua pitched against seven agencies, including Proximity, for the task.

Three of the agencies, HRG, MarketSquare and QED, will continue working on a project basis over a transitional period until Joshua takes full control. The changes will be phased in from 2005 and the three will remain on the food and snacks roster.

Proximity and TMS will no longer work on pet care but will stay on the food and snacks roster, and Tequila/London will no longer work for Masterfoods in the UK.

Joshua will be tasked with developing a UK customer relationship marketing programme for Masterfoods’ pet care brands.

The review, which was handled by Agency Insight, is the latest of several agency shake-ups at Masterfoods. It moved its £55m Pedigree account out of Grey and into TBWA/Worldwide at the beginning of the year (MW January 29), before removing Grey from its roster in the autumn. TBWA/London won the accounts for Twix, Galaxy and Starburst, and Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO picked up the Mars, MilkyWay and Delight brands.

Masterfoods European vice-president of marketing for petcare Geoff Star left the company suddenly last month after two years in the job. Fellow Masterfoods pet care marketer Chris McDonough also recently left to join Müller Dairy UK as marketing director (MW November 25).