Direct Line and EE line up Christmas reviews

This one’s a hardy perennial: big client calls review over Christmas.

According to Campaign Direct Line is reviewing its £46m account with M&C Saatchi, which the agency has held since 2005. You’d think that with eight years to think about it, it could have found a more sociable time.

But there you go. Direct Line Group, which spends a whopper £85m on media in the UK with MediaCom, is apparently not reviewing its Churchill account at WCRS or Green Flag at CHI.

We don’t wish to be mean to the latter two agencies, pillars of the London ad scene that they are, but DLG would be better off looking at the advertising for these, which is dire. That would be particularly tough on CHI though, as another of its big clients Argos has just announced an ad review following the appointment of a new marketing director.

Meanwhile, in another part of the landscape of comfort and joy, EE (formerly Everything Everywhere, which owns Orange and T-Mobile) is thought to be reviewing its direct marketing account at Publicis Chemistry. Which will produce a most unseasonal stab of anxiety at its consumer ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi, also owned by Publicis Groupe.

Saatchi has been running its Kevin Bacon campaign (left), which seems to have scored quite well. But EE has still to get its marketing together (and its shops are hopeless). In these circumstances the agency usually cops it and Saatchi has already lost £100m Asda to VCCP this year and EE must spend at least half that.

Let’s hope, for Saatchi’s sake, that EE confines the chemistry to Chemistry.