Beattie start-up beats JWT to £15m McCain business

Beattie McGuiness Bungay (BMB) has won the £15m advertising business for frozen food manufacturer McCain.

Beattie McGuiness Bungay (BMB) has won the &£15m advertising business for frozen food manufacturer McCain.

The agency beat JWT to the account after incumbent TBWALondon declined to repitch.

The McCain account was earmarked as a likely candidate to follow TBWA’s former chairman and executive creative director Trevor Beattie and Andrew McGuinness, former TBWA chief executive, when they left the agency to launch BMB a year ago. BMB was barred from talking to McCain until the start of May.

It is not clear if the company approached any other agency about the account, which had been with TBWA for three years. It was thought the company was planning to split the business between the two agencies, but has since decided against the move.

The account was reviewed in 2003 after its agency D’Arcy was folded into Leo Burnett, as it clashed with the Heinz account. At the time TBWA pitched against Grey London and Euro RSCG to win the business.

BMB has had a strong start to the year with new business and has already won advertising for Selfridges, the &£7m advertising business for Coors-owned brand Carling, and a place on the Heinz roster after the food company acquired rival HP Foods, which the agency won last year.

The agency has won 11 clients in its first year, although it was forced to resign the account for EMAP-owned weekly men’s magazine Zoo over a conflict with Richard Desmond’s Northern & Shell.