It’s been one of the biggest (and longest) creative pitches of the year, but it looks like WPP has emerged triumphant on the global Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) contest after a final round that included incumbent Accenture Song and Omnicom.
After a long nine months, the marketer says it has entered a “period of exclusivity” with WPP for its four main car brands: Defender, Discovery, Jaguar and Range Rover. Accenture Song’s contract remains in place until mid 2026, so there’s time for JLR and WPP to sort out the small print by their self-imposed deadline, end of Q1.
JLR told Campaign: “JLR can confirm that it has chosen WPP to enter into a period of exclusivity and contract negotiations in the final phase of its global agency review. The pitch covered JLR’s ‘end to end’ marketing communications and services, across all channels globally.”
It’s a much-needed creative coup for recently-installed WPP CEO Cindy Rose, who will no doubt be using this “period of exclusivity” to sort out conflict with other car brands that WPP works with. These include Ford and Volvo (through Grey) – both run globally – and Audi and VW in North America.
