O2 hands £100m pan-European media account to Zenith
Telefonica, owner of the O2 network, has consolidated its European media buying and planning business into Publicis Groupe’s ZenithOptimedia.
ZenithOptimedia already handled O2’s £59m UK media business. It will now work across O2’s five European markets: the UK, Ireland, Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The sole contract guarantees more efficient planning, coordination and coherence in O2’s media advertising efforts in Europe.
O2 says the decision also allows greater optimisation of media advertising spend in the five European markets where Telefónica operates under the O2 brand.
In 2008, O2 UK consolidated its entire media planning and buying business into ZenithOptimedia following a review. Zenith, already the incumbent on the offline media account, has now picked up online media planning and buying, which has been handled by Media Republic since 2002.
Zenith’s footprint and capacity, with local teams in each of these countries, as well as the quality of its service were decisive in the final assessment.
With this tender, Telefónica’s Global Marketing division has aligned its European media agency policy regionally, as it did recently in Spain and Latin America.
Sally Cowdry, marketing director, O2, says: “Over the last six years we have been very pleased with the quality, creativity and value of Zenith’s media planning and buying for O2 UK. We are delighted that Zenith has been awarded the European media business.”
This story first appeared on pitch
