3 Shops Pitch AOL $100 Mil. Assignment

NEW YORK America Online is opening up its ad account again to agencies, and the assignment is worth about $100 million, sources said. Omnicom siblings BBDO and DDB, both New York, and independent Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., have been meeting with the client and are each scheduled to present ideas to the Dulles, Va. client “within the next few weeks,” sources said.

AOL head of marketing Len Short said the current competition had always been part of the company’s plan, but two sources characterized the process as a “repitch”
saying there is dissatisfaction with BBDO’s broadband campaign and that the new ideas being sought for the umbrella campaign could supplant that effort.