A&L hands Carat £7.5m press buying and planning

Carat Direct Communications has been appointed to handle Alliance & Leicester’s £7.5m press buying and planning business. The business moves from MediaVest Manchester, which retains the £8m television buying and planning account.

Carat Direct Communications has been appointed to handle Alliance & Leicester’s £7.5m press buying and planning business. The business moves from MediaVest Manchester, which retains the £8m television buying and planning account.

A&L is one of the biggest online advertisers, having announced plans to send £10m on the medium earlier this year (MW April 8). It is understood that online planning and buying was not included in the review.

Earlier this year, A&L, which spends more than £17m a year on marketing, appointed McCann Erickson Birmingham, without a pitch, to work on brand positioning and a direct-response TV campaign.

The A&L win is one of a number of new business wins for Carat, which has also picked up media buying for Allied Carpets, following a pitch against other agencies. Allied spends about £3.5m a year. AMS Media had been handling the business.

Another recent Carat win is partypoker.com, which is thought to be spending about £5m. The bulk of the spend will initially go offline in an effort to build brand awareness for the gambling website.

Online lingerie retailer figleaves.com has also appointed Carat to handle its media planning and Carat Digital for its digital media. Figleaves is understood to spend about £1m.