Jetstar has appointed J. Walter Thompson Melbourne to be its Australian creative agency partner, after a competitive pitch process that commenced last October.

 J. Walter Thompson Melbourne’s MD, Michael Godwin said: “We’re thrilled to be Jetstar’s new lead creative agency and enjoyed what was an extremely well managed pitch process. Jetstar is a brand that exists to help make the world more accessible to more people, every day. What a wonderful platform to build inspiring, motivating communications upon. We can’t wait to start doing so.”

Commenting on the win, John Gutteridge, J. Walter Thompson CEO Australia/New Zealand said: “By any measure, whether it be the quality of our creative output, or record YOY growth, 2015 was a year like no other for J. Walter Thompson in Australia. Welcoming Jetstar to our Melbourne office client roster will certainly help continue this positive momentum into the year ahead.”

Jetstar Chief Commercial Officer Catriona Larritt said that after 11 years with Big Red, the airline commenced its first ever creative agency review last year.

“We met with a number of agencies who all demonstrated different strengths and capabilities, but in JWT we saw an opportunity to simultaneously stretch the brand, whilst building on our very strong foundations.  It was a rigorous process and JWT challenged us, and themselves, every step of the way.

“We would also like to thank Ted, Hugh and the team at Big Red who have supported us through this process and for the past 11 years.”

This latest win caps off a stellar 12 months for J. Walter Thompson Melbourne, during which it secured multiple high profile new clients, transformed its in-house capabilities and more than doubled in size.

Godwin said: “Thanks to a period of significant transformation and investment, we offer one of the best-qualified retail teams in the country, supported by an unrivalled end-to-end in-house production capability. We look forward to leveraging this to deliver effective communications for Jetstar with great speed and cost efficiency.”