St Luke’s wins 5m BT brief

BT has handed its 5m youth advertising account to St Luke’s. The appointment marks the first occasion the telecoms giant has appointed an agency to target young people.

St Luke’s beat Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO – which recently retained BT’s main consumer advertising account – Duckworth Finn Grubb Waters, HHCL & Partners and Wieden & Kennedy.

BT is keen to attract young people who have quickly embraced mobile phones and have no allegiance to the BT brand, being too young to remember the company’s monopolistic heyday (MW October 29).

The pitch was overseen by BT head of marketing communications Tim Evans, formerly brand director at Cellnet, the mobile phone operator 60 per cent owned by BT. Cellnet has successfully attracted young consumers to its “U”-branded pre-pay mobile phones.

Two weeks ago, M&C Saatchi won its first slice of BT business when it was appointed to the “senior decision maker and technical” account, dealing with advertising for businesses. The new four-year advertising contracts begin on April 1.

The Allmond Partnership handles BT’s TV buying and Zenith Media runs the press buying account.

In January, St Luke’s won the 18m Sky Networks, 6m Central Office of Information Family Tax Credit and 6m Express accounts. Existing clients include Ikea and the Boots No 17 and No 7 make-up ranges. It recently lost Radio 1 to Fallon McElligott.