The UAE’s second telecommunications company, du, has called a review of its creative advertising account.
The review involves incumbent Leo Burnett Dubai, which has held the account since the company launched in 2006, and two other unnamed agencies. Ashish Banerjee, du’s vice-president brand and comm-unications, said the move was part of a statutory review that forms part of the company’s corporate governance.
“We’re a value player in the market,” said Banerjee. “We define value as what you get for what you pay, which is how the consumer has benefited, and now we’re looking for more value in all of our partnerships. Because until we have that value, we can’t pass enough along to our customers. Value in terms of what we get and what we pay for it.”
Du is the latest in a long line of telecom operators to call a review of its creative advertising account this year. Etisalat, Saudi Telecom, Qtel and Virgin Mobile Qatar have all called pitches during the past 12 months, with decisions still to be made on all of them.
Du is the trade name of the Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company, which recently announced a more than doubling of net profits during the third quarter of this year to $44 million, with the company adding 159,800 mobile phone users in the quarter, bringing its total subscribers to 4.08 million.
What again??? Agencies will spend millions jumping through hoops and then LB will get it again – go on give it to a real agency, Strawberry Frog anyone…
How about selecting an agency for their brilliant ideas and proven ROI? Value is the most overused and misunderstood word in Dubai’s ad industry.. As far as I can see, value means publishing ads with cheap stock imagery, illegible copy and grammatical errors..
What’s the value in that???