Virgin Australia is pitching its media planning and buying account, placing Omnicom’s PHD on notice, B&T can reveal.
The review covers Virgin Australia and Velocity Frequent Flyer Program, and is part of the Group’s standard governance and procurement process.
At this early stage, Virgin has identified the media agencies it would like to take part in an RFP process.
“We can confirm we are undertaking a review of our media buying agency,” a Virgin Australia spokesperson told B&T.
PHD has worked with the airline since 2019, when it won the account from Carat — Virgin’s foundation media agency partner in this market. It is likely that PHD will defend the account.
Agencies that will be conflicted out of the review include OMD and Wavemaker, which have a long-standing relationships with Qantas and Jetstar, respectively.
Virgin Australia’s group chief marketing officer is Libby Minogue will have plenty of suitors for the account. Although Virgin Australia doesn’t publicly disclose its annual media spend, sources believe it would be in the vicinity of $50 million.
Virgin Australia also works with creative agency Special, which is not part of the review. Recently Special and PHD worked on Velocity Frequent Flyers’ Way To Go campaign (see below).
In March, Virgin Australia’s head of retail, partnerships and revenue growth, Nancy Lan, joined Mindshare to head up its Sydney client portfolio.
This year, the airline sector has had to navigate severe turbulence as a result of the Iran war and soaring fuel prices, which have led to flight cancellations and soaring costs.
All the agencies declined to comment when reached by B&T.
