Beiersdorf moves £78m media account to MEC

By Ian Darby, campaignlive.co.uk, Monday, 01 October 2012 10:16AM

Beiersdorf, the company that owns the Nivea brand, is to move its estimated £78 million media account for Northern Europe into MEC.

The WPP-owned network triumphed in a final head-to-head contest against the incumbent agency Carat, which had held the business since 1998. OMD was involved in the earlier stages of the process.

MEC's win covers the account in UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland while Carat retains the business in France and Germany. 

UK spend on the account was £24 million in the year to end of June 2012, according to Nielsen. This covers brands including Nivea, Elastoplast and Eucerin.

An RFI was issued by Beiersdorf’s HQ in Hamburg in May.

Carat had created award-winning work for the Nivea brand including a tie-up with fashion retailer Asos.com that won last year’s Campaign Media Campaign of the Year award.

Draftfcb is the incumbent on the global Beiersdorf ad account and is unaffected by the media review.

A statement from Beiersdorf said: "The services of the new agency fit extremely well with the new and future requirements of Beiersdorf and we are confident that our business will grow further. We are looking forward to building a great working relationship with the MEC team."

"At the same time we also would like to show our utmost appreciation on strong commitment and long-term partnership Carat devoted in the last years in this market. Carat will remain as our strong global media agency partner and we are looking forward for a further great working relationship in all the markets where we already have a close and successful collaboration."

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This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk