Dubai-based boutique agency Expression has been named the regional advertising partner for German airline Lufthansa.
The move follows the airline’s handing of its global advertising account to Kolle Rebbe, a Hamburg-based creative boutique agency, earlier this month, with Expression becoming the Middle East and North Africa partner in the global Lufthansa agency network. In total, five regional agencies form the core of the network tailored to handle Lufthansa globally. Through them, all of Lufthansa’s international markets will be handled either from Hamburg, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Dubai or New Delhi. The other agencies include MRM India, partners+napier in New York, and Ad-Comm in Tokyo.
The decision to form a tailored network will allow all partners to contribute to, and drive, global strategy and executional development, as well implement centrally developed material at a regional level.
Kolle Rebbe’s Johan von Gersdorff is to lead the global network as international account director, joining from Draftfcb Hamburg. “I strongly believe that today, global accounts such as Lufthansa can be handled with more focus, more strategic and creative quality and with a lot more speed and efficiency, when you don’t use the classic network model,” said von Gersdorff. “With Kolle Rebbe, a creative boutique agency, I have the opportunity to build this new global agency model.”
Scott Feasey, managing director of Expression, said: “As a fellow independent, we have been big fans of Kolle Rebbe for some time, and always admired their work, so it is especially exciting to be part of their global Lufthansa network team. The process was long and detailed, as it should be to find the right long-term partner, and we are very proud that Expression was the one independent that stood out above all others.”
The Kolle Rebbe network was built through a selection process that was guided and supported by thenetworkone, a global network of independent agencies. Out of this long list, 40 potential candidates were identified and meetings were held with half of them. At the end of this process, two finalists per geography were invited to present.
