WPP Dell win casts doubt over Mother

Mother’s position on Dell’s $4.5bn (£2.2bn) global advertising roster hangs in the balance after the computer giant appointed WPP Group to handle the consolidated business.

WPP will be allowed to decide whether it wants to work with any of Dell’s other agencies after it triumphed in a final pitch against Interpublic Group.

Mother was appointed to Dell’s roster earlier this year and the agency has just created a global campaign for the company’s XPS One and XPS M1530 products.

WPP will set up a new agency to service the Dell business. It is not yet known what the shop will be called but it will be run by Young & Rubicam North America’s chief marketing officer Mitch Caplan.

A Dell spokesman tells Marketing Week: “We like the work Mother has been doing and the pitch was in no way a reflection on the agency. But we have appointed WPP and it will have the right to choose whether it wants to subcontract any of the business to other agencies we have worked with in the past.”

The Dell pitch was so big that the company gave it its own name: Project DaVinci. It was run by Dell’s chief marketing officer Mark Jarvis and vice-president of marketing Casey Jones and also involved Omnicom, Publicis Groupe and Havas until they were knocked out earlier this year (MW August 30).

WPP will be tasked with creating Dell’s first major global brand advertising campaign. It will move the company away from its famous direct selling business model. The majority of Dell’s marketing budget has, until now, been spent on direct marketing and catalogues.