Thomas Cook hands HMDG foreign exchange project

Thomas Cook has handed Hurrell Moseley Dawson Grimmer (HMDG) an advertising project to work on its foreign exchange offering.

It is believed that HMDG was handed the brief after a pitch against other agencies. Thomas Cook’s lead agency in recent years has been Company of Angels. The work, under the banner “Get more money for your money at Thomas Cook”, has already broken and embraces press, outdoor and in-store activity.

The company is keen to stress to travellers that Thomas Cook will beat the exchange rate offered by the Post Office.

Thomas Cook is also sponsoring the new ITV1 game show The Colour of Money, hosted by Chris Tarrant. It is using the sponsorship to promote its foreign exchange service in a deal brokered by Arena BLM. The sponsorship idents were developed by Addition.

The Red Brick Road was in talks with Thomas Cook earlier this year but did not pursue further negotiations.

The holiday company recently appointed former Abbey marketer Michael Johnson to work at group level and he has been handed the title group brand director. He was recruited by Angus Porter, his former boss at Abbey and BT and who is now group strategy director at Thomas Cook.

Head of channel marketing Jonathan Smith left the company earlier this year and executive director of marketing Simon Carter left last September.

HMDG recently unveiled its launch campaign for the new version of Wired magazine, which is being published by Cond頎ast.