Coup for Marketforce as Curtin University ends five year relationship with The Brand Agency
UPDATED STORY: Marketforce has continued their great start to 2013, winning the blue-chip $6 million Curtin University pitch. An official announcement confirming the move is expected tomorrow, with Marketforce’s current status being “Preferred Tenderer” until the final contract is signed.
Curtin has been with incumbent The Brand Agency for the past five years since leaving Gatecrasher in 2007. The original three year appointment has been rolled over twice since.
The Brand Agency, Marketforce and JWT Perth all pitched for the business in a review process that started in March.
The past 8 months has been a prosperous time for Marketforce. Their appointment to part of the national iiNet account in December last year has been followed by appointments to national projects for Mirvac plus the Training & Workforce Development and Department of Fisheries accounts.
The Brand Agency MD Steve Harris told Campaign Brief that Curtin has been a great client of the agency over the past five years and he wished them well in their next stage with Marketforce.
“This is a good win for Marketforce and for Colin (Mackay-Coghill) who lead their pitch,” said Harris. “Curtin has been a great client and we are proud of both the work we have created for them over the past five years and the results our advertising has achieved and been recognised for. There’s no doubt this loss is a blow to us, and very disappointing, but I must say I was extremely happy with the work we created for the pitch – Marketforce must have put together a great pitch to beat us.”
Marketforce MD John Driscoll told Campaign Brief today that they were obviously delighted with the win.
“I’d like to acknowledge the difficulty of the decision for Curtin, given their strong relationship with The Brand Agency and Paul (Yole) and Morgen (Lewis) over the past five years. We’re very excited with this win. We took up the challenge presented as part of the brief and the pitch process gave us the chance to fully demonstrate the strategic and creative firepower of our agency,” said Driscoll.
Marketforce’s appointment is effective September 1st.
8 Comments
That a big surprise, especially given the great work done by Brand. Is it yet another example of the curse of being CB Agency of the year?
Great win! Congrats!
Good to see MF bounce back in a good old fashioned creative shoot-out. Well done to the whole agency. Feel for The Brand who have done some nice work on this account.
Congratulations, Gents. And commiserations to Brand. Tough act to follow.
Well done MF. I must say Humble Pie tastes average.
Well done boys!
Ohh wow UWA and ECU must be laughing! Brand were doing a great job Curtin!
Don’t worry Brand. I reckon you could soon fill that gap.