Verizon has expanded its relationship with the WPP organization by assigning the retail portion of its marketing account to brand experience agency SET.
The move effectively serves as a WPP consolidation. Like many of Verizon’s recent agency shifts, it occurred without a pitch or a formal review.
WPP acquired a majority interest in SET almost exactly one year ago. The Portland-based shop, which also has offices in New York, L.A. and London, started as a Nike agency and currently works with such clients as Google Glass, Red Bull, Uniqlo and Jordan.
AKQA continues to handle digital and interactive on the account, though Verizon did move to send a larger share of the digital work on certain portions of its business to R/GA earlier this year after choosing the two agencies to partner on digital after a review that ended just over 12 months ago. Moving forward, SET will lead the retail portion of the business while partnering with AKQA on creative. The latter shop’s relationship with the client will not change as its has long partnered with retail agencies, though it is not clear at this time which one handled the work in question before the client went with SET.
As we understand it, this move came about due to Verizon’s desire to add more digital and interactive elements to its retail marketing efforts. The two agencies will be meeting next week to determine how they will collaborate on the business.
Spokespeople for AKQA and SET declined to comment for this post.
Verizon’s most recent consolidation move involved shifting the entirety of its FiOS direct marketing account from MRM//McCann to indie agency Rauxa.