De Beers retail arm calls advertising pitch
De Beers LV, the diamond company’s retail venture with luxury goods company LVMH, is understood to be looking for an agency to handle its global advertising brief. The company spent &£750,000 on advertising last year.
The review comes just 13 months after the upmarket retailer picked the WPP-owned Red Cell network, now known as United, to promote its stores around the world. Marketing director John Christophe Gandon had called the review as part of a repositioning and new marketing strategy for the brand (MW July 15, 2004).
Les Ouvriers du Paradis, the Red Cell operation in Paris, was lead agency on the account, and pitched with HHCL and Berlin Cameron in New York, against M&C Saatchi, TBWA/London and French shop Air. It is not known whether the agency will repitch.
The global De Beers brief, which includes its London-based Diamond Trading Company, is handled by JWT. It is not known whether JWT will pitch for the LV business.
De Beers LV was formed in 2001 to launch upmarket stores and exclusive jewellery lines. It opened its first store in London’s Old Bond Street the same year. Its launch was marred by charity Survival International, which campaigned against the brand’s mining practices in Botswana.
The diamond company, which produces about 60 per cent of the world’s diamonds, is also due to go before South
