Auto Trader consolidates £10m media account
Auto Trader, part-owned by Guardian Media Group, has overhauled its £10m media planning and buying business to consolidate the account into a combined team from Aegis Media’s Carat and Diffiniti.
The review, led by Trader Media Group’s group marketing director Matt Thompson, sees MediaCom North dropped from the business and instead, the team from previous agency Diffiniti will transfer to Carat.The final pitch shortlist included ZenithOptimedia and MediaCom, with a number of other agencies involved earlier in the process.
Thompson says: “Aegis has already proved its expertise through its work on our online brief. The pitch gave us the ideal opportunity to consolidate our agency portfolio and by doing so to create a more cohesive and streamlined approach for our overall media campaign.”
Lead creative agency Hurrell Moseley Dawson Grimmer retains responsibility for the overall communication strategy for Auto Trader.
At the beginning of this year Guardian Media Group chief executive Carolyn McCall was reported as saying in her personal view aid Auto Trader would probably cease publishing as a print magazine within five years, given the current growth of the website.
GMG has just revealed that TMG made a £55m profit in the six months since 1 April. The division is jointly owned with Apax.
GMG sister division Guardian News & Media has made steep losses and has just announced another round of job cuts among commercial and editorial teams together with an overhaul of The Observer newspaper.
