British Shops Look To Make a Connection: Telecommunications Accounts Are A New Source of Revenue in the U.K. By Susannah Richmon

LONDON - The freshly deregulated U.K. telecommunications industry is about to become

Since British Telecom was privatized in 1984, the government has been granting licenses to would-be rival companies to end the former state-owned monopoly. So far, Mercury and Hutchison Telecom’s Microtel have called in Woollams Moira Gaskin O’Malley and J. Walter Thompson to handle their respective personal communications network (PCN) launches. Both companies are likely to spend at least $14 million on media advertising.
Mercury is already investing around $7.25 million a year through Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury and McCann-Erickson in support of its fledgling telephone network. BT is also rapidly becoming one of the country’s biggest spenders, with its four key agencies, Butterfield Day Devito Hockney; Abbott Mead Vickers; Saatchi & Saatchi; and Simons Palmer Denton Clemmow and Johnson defending its market domination with around $36 million in 1992. Add to that the new telepoint operations, mobile phone services and associated products, and the sector is proving to be one of the only sources of real virgin advertising revenue in the UK.
Two weeks ago, BT handed WCRS its third-stage privatization advertising after a closely fought battle between BMP DDB Needham, JWT and Saatchi.
Now shops are now lining up to snatch a chance at Telecom Electric, a subsidiary of the National Grid set up by the 12 privatized regional electricity companies.
Susannah Richmond is assistant editor with Campaign.
Copyright Adweek L.P. (1993)