Opodo suspends £3m Euro review after staff changes

Online travel company Opodo has temporarily suspended its pan-European &£3m advertising review to allow a new commercial director and marketing director to settle into their roles.

Former France country manager Petra Friedmann has been promoted to sales and marketing director and will remain based in Paris. Friedmann will report to new commercial and product director Sally Balcombe who in turn will report to chief executive Simon Vincent. Isabelle Ratinaud will remain in her job as head of European marketing.

Opodo has retained agencies in all of its major European markets and uses Karmarama in the UK. However, it launched a &£3m pan-European review to find a lead agency earlier this year but failed to complete the process before the personnel changes.

An Opodo spokeswoman says: “The review is continuing but has been stalled to let our new appointments bed into their roles and assess their priorities.” She did not rule out the review being abandoned altogether.

Last February Opodo ran a brand repositioning campaign, created by Karmarama, to try and provide consumers with a personal touch and a “more emotional” relationship than they were getting from other online travel brands, which traditionally concentrate on price over relationships.

Medicom handled the media buying for the UK wide campaign, which used cinema, national press, outdoor, online, radio sponsorship and London taxis.