DDB grabs £200m Philips brief
Philips Electronics is to split with Euro RSCG Worldwide and has appointed DDB Worldwide to its global advertising roster with a brief to handle accounts worth $300m (£200m).
DDB Worldwide will handle advertising for the product divisions Consumer Electronics, Semiconductors, Components and the Philips Group. In the UK, BMP DDB will work on the business.
Philips has awarded the other agency on its roster, D’Arcy, the lighting and medical systems business previously held by Euro RSCG.
D’Arcy has also picked up Sonicare, the leading electrical oral care brand recently acquired by Philips and formerly handled by Goodby Silverstein. It already handles advertising for Philips’ domestic appliances and personal care division, also worth $300m.
Philips’ head of global brand management, Mark Kerray, says: “Following an extensive evaluation process and a thorough comparison of available competence, we have decided to continue with a new advertising agency, DDB Worldwide, hoping to further accelerate our global brand equity building and consistency of execution.”
Philips global marketing chief Gerard Dufour, who was responsible, with Euro RSCG Worldwide, for the “Let’s make things better” campaign, left the company in late 1999 after suffering two major heart attacks (MW 4 November 1999). It is expected that the new agency arrangements will not lead to a change in the line. Dufour was hired from Euro RSCG Worldwide in 1996 and was credited with introducing a branding and marketing culture to the company.
Euro RSCG Worldwide’s contract on the Philips business will end in June 2001.
