Two other outdoor specialists -- WPP's Portland and the soon-to-launch Starcom/ ZenithOptimedia venture CMX -- also pitched in the first round of the review early this month. Starcom was the incumbent, working with Heartland, which made headlines when it snatched Nokia's outdoor China business from Zenith early last year. Omar Rodriguez, Coke's China media head, declined to comment on the review, which will move to its second phase later this month. Sources said the upcoming pitch would be based on a limited number of cities in a market where outdoor is a notoriously complex undertaking due to a highly-fragmented landscape.
"The big names like Tom and JCDecaux are trying to consolidate on the vendor side, but if you add them together they still represent less than 10 per cent of the total market," a source said.
