Carphone Warehouse reviews £14m account

The Carphone Warehouse is reviewing its &£14m group advertising account, which includes its recently acquired store chains Tandy and Tecno.

Newly-appointed marketing director Lesley Angus, who joined the company from Virgin clothing in March, has talked to a number of agencies over recent weeks. The point of the review is to unify the company’s strategy across its three retail brands, which cover 700 stores.

The first part of the review is the TV work for The Carphone Warehouse, which will appear in late autumn in preparation for the Christmas period.

The Carphone Warehouse’s &£10m account is currently held by the Advertising Brasserie on a project basis. Young & Rubicam handles Tandy’s &£3m account and Tecno photographic stores account, just under &£1m, is handled in-house.

A spokeswoman for the company says: “Angus is looking at all areas of the business and eventually everything will come under review. This is the start of the process.”

All agencies which work with the Carphone group will be involved in the review. The group uses a number of other specialist agencies for radio and branding work.

The Carphone Warehouse’s media buying account and its media planning, handled by Media

Matters and Unity respectively, remain unaffected by the review.

The Carphone Warehouse bought Tandy from its US parent InterTan in January, and Tecno from a private consortium in May, both for undisclosed sums.