Johannesburg - Leading multinational pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis has appointed Saatchi & Saatchi as its new creative agency for its entire PharmaChoice portfolio of products, and has signed a contract for communications billings worth an estimated R30 million.
“With the acquisition of PharmaChoice by Sanofi-Aventis, we needed to partner with a leading advertising company who understands consumer advertising,” says PharmaChoice head, Carel Meintjes. “Saatchi & Saatchi was ranked first in Objectivity 2008 Top International Agencies in SA, which made them a preferred partner. They have also done some great work for us on Essentiale during 2008, which clinched the partnership.”
According to Saatchi & Saatchi Johannesburg MD, Grant Meldrum (pictured), the successful Essentiale ad campaign involved a strategic, pro-active approach. “They were impressed with our proven consumer research tools.”
He continues: “We are extremely excited about working with Sanofi-Aventis, which has a fantastic product range under its PharmaChoice banner and are looking forward to building Lovemarks out of all of their brands and assisting in positioning them as the leading pharmaceutical company in South Africa,” says Meldrum.
Saatchi & Saatchi will be looking at using a complete 360 degree holistic approach to all of the PharmaChoice brands. “We will be including shopper marketing and interactive solutions to ensure that we provide compelling content to all consumer touch points,” he adds. “We believe that we can build some powerful Lovemarks out of these terrific products by emotionally connecting with our clients customers at all levels.”
Saatchi & Saatchi won the Objectivity award earlier this year with Saatchi & Saatchi’s Johannesburg and Cape Town offices being voted best performing agencies in the Objectivity Agency Performance Review Survey of Advertising Agency Performances for 2008. Saatchi & Saatchi Johannesburg secured first place, followed by Saatchi & Saatchi Cape Town in second place, in the Best Performing Advertising Agencies Overall category.
Saatchi & Saatchi Johannesburg also attained two Golds at the prestigious Loeries awards last month, one for its ‘Fetch Campaign’ for Eukanuba under the experiential category for alternative media and field marketing, and one for its ‘Makita Wall’ outdoor campaign, under the ambient media category.
With these Loerie wins Saatchi & Saatchi now ranks 6th in the agency group ratings and 8th in the individual agency ratings, under the new Creative Circle Loeries ranking system, which is based on the number of statues won.