Vodafone Centralising $1.3 Billion Marketing Budget

Vodafone is expected to centralise its global media planning contract with just the one agency in a deal worth £800 million (US$1.3 billion) covering 20 markets. The Media Week publication reported that WPP, is the likely winner.

WPP Team Vodafone co-ordinates all the WPP companies working on the Vodafone business.

The media pitch does not includes Vodafone's minority subsidiaries, Verzion Wireless or France's SFR - nor Vodacom covering the African market. It is not yet clear if Vodafone's Australian business, which recently merged with Hutchison's 3, is included.

A spokesman for WPP said that, as far as it was concerned, no final decision had been made and there were still three agencies involved in the process.

WPP Group, based in London, UK, is the world's second largest communications services group in terms of revenue (and one of the big six advertising holding companies, the others being Omnicom, Interpublic, Publicis, Dentsu and Havas) employing 100,000 people working in more than 2,000 offices in 106 countries.

On the web: Media Week

Posted to the site on 12th August 2009