The brief covers the group's eight business units ranging from the country's top two department store chains, Central and Robinsons, and number one supermarket chain, Tops, to sporting goods outlet Supersports and home improvement store HomeWorks. Media planning and buying was previously shared between an in-house team and agencies appointed by the various business units.
The consolidation of the media business with MEC will allow CRC to "get a higher level of planning services and advice, and benefit from the negotiating clout that we would have as a big group," said senior vice-president for marketing Kenneth Mays.
CRC will, however, continue to coordinate some buying inhouse to take ad- vantage of established relationships with certain media. "We based the pitch on a retainer so it doesn't matter who does the buying. (MEC) will be involved depending on the needs of each business unit." MEC's brief also covers new media, Mays said. "One of the parameters of the pitch was if they were able to help us plan, not only for traditional, but also new channels coming up."
Central taps MEC for group's eight Thai businesses
Thailand's Central Retail Corporation (CRC) has handed MEC a 200 million baht (US$5.2 million) media buying and planning assignment following a pitch against Starcom and Initiative.