Land Rover Shifts $50 Million Account

DETROIT — Land Rover officials have confirmed that its $50 million U.S. account will be consolidated with other Ford business at Young & Rubicam, sources said.

The shift from GSD&M in Austin, Texas, has been in the works for several months (Adweek, July 1). Y&R handles Land Rover, which is owned by Ford Motor Co., in the rest of the world. The agency’s Irvine, Calif., office, where the U.S. Land Rover account will be based, also does work Ford’s Lincoln Mercury and Jaguar brands.

Media buying and some limited spot buying, both also at GSD&M, will be shifted to the WPP Group’s Mediaedge:cia. The majority of the media assignment remains at WPP’s Ford Motor Media, Detroit, said Jon Williams, Land Rover vice president of marketing.

GSD&M, which won the Land Rover business in March 2000, will get a 90-day notice and the account will move to Y&R in October. The agency had a “no-cut: clause with the automaker that expired June 30.

Ford bought Land Rover three months after GSD&M won the account, a change agency president Roy Spence said the shop couldn’t overcome.

“This decision (to consolidate at Y&R) was especially disappointing since it was made not for cause but rather based on corporate decisions that had nothing to do with the success of our work,” Spence said.