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DATE: 14/06/2007

Nokia win

Lexis PR has fended off competition from three agencies to land Nokia’s sought-after UK account, following an unusual pitch process. The agency will start work in July and take responsibility for both consumer and corporate communications. It will continue with the mobile phone maker’s attempts to emphasise a ‘lifestyle focus’ by promoting elements of the Nokia business such as music and fashion. From an initial eight agencies, a list of four was drawn up, also comprising The Red Consultancy, Hill & Knowlton and Nelson Bostock. These four were invited to a second stage where each agency was presented with a specific product launch they had to come up with ideas for. Each team was then given ten scenarios and asked to come up with responses for all ten within 30 minutes. The client sat in on the process and discussed each problem with the agencies. Lexis director of business communications Mark Lyons will head up the account working alongside the agency’s director of consumer Nicola Long. Lyons said: ‘It was a challenging process, but it allowed us to have a greater engagement with the client.’ Previously the account was split between two agencies: Grant Butler Coomber for corporate and The Red Consultancy for consumer. It has been consolidated to enable one agency to work on the overall brand. The Red Consultancy is believed to have a new telecoms client in its sight. Nokia’s director of communications Mark Squires insisted that the review was ‘normal business practice for any large company’. Nokia poached its main rival Motorola’s head of comms last month to oversee its worldwide PR. Mark Durrant joins the company on 18 June as director of comms, strategy and technology. Source: PR Week 15/6/07

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