After a four-way pitch involving incumbent DDB, Clemenger BBDO, Cummins and Spinach, the $60 million Kmart account has moved to Cummins & Partners.
Kmart’s acting managing director Alan Steele confirmed the move this afternoon.
“We are looking forward to working with Cummins & Partners on maximising marketing opportunities for our business,” he said.
Cummins will work in conjunction with DDB for a ‘handover’ period, allowing the new agency to evolve the ‘Cutting the cost of living’ brand positioning.
The account has been with DDB Melbourne for over two years, however the agency’s group managing director, Andrew Little, is philosophical about the impact of the account loss on his agency’s bottom line.
“Over the past couple of years DDB has been approached by a number of companies in the retail sector but we have been unable to talk to them due to the broad nature of Kmart’s offerings (including apparel, general merchandise, tyres and auto repairs). What we will be doing after the Kmart contract expires is following up on those enquiries and specifically, increasing our expertise in the retail sector,” he said today.
Over the past year, DDB has put on new clients such as Heinz, Cussons and ANZ consumer finance, as well as adding new regions to their Michelin Global Motorsport portfolio.
