Lacoste, the French fashion brand, has appointed MPG Media Contacts to its media planning and buying account for its clothing and leather goods ranges, after a pitch.

The appointment comes ahead of Lacoste’s opening of its first UK flagship store in London later this year. MPG Media Contacts started working with Lacoste this week.

Lacoste previously worked with the luxury specialist media agency Cream.

MPG Media Contacts’ other clients include Hermès, Hugo Boss and Boden, as well as fragrances from Paul Smith, Jimmy Choo, Burberry, Paco Rabanne and Nina Ricci.

Paul Frampton, managing director at MPG Media Contacts, said: “We are very excited to be adding to our portfolio of high-end fashion brands.

AMV BBDO is ramping up its planning department by poaching two senior strategists from DDB

The agency has hired Herve Hannequin to lead global strategy on Pedigree and Kathy Slack to lead global strategy on Galaxy.

Hannequin has worked at DDB for three years and ran the global Phillips account. He previously worked at WCRS&Co as head of international planning.

Slack headed up the VW, Harvey Nichols and Gu accounts at DDB. Prior to that, she worked on Lynx and Persil at BBH. Read full story here

Lindsay Masters, who led the launch of Campaign in 1968 and ran Haymarket for nearly three decades, has passed away.

Masters joined Haymarket as a salesman in 1958, a year after the company was founded by Michael Heseltine.

He played a pivotal role first in selling Town – Britain’s first modern consumer style title for men, which provided the basis of success for Haymarket – and later in applying the quality and design of the title to trade magazines with the help of Simon Tindall, who would later become his chief executive. read full story here

Brooklyn Brothers beat competing shops DDB UK, 18 Feet & Rising and the design company Pentagram to win the business.

The review, which was conducted by Marc Sands, the Tate director of audiences and media, kicked off after the company and its previous incumbent Fallon parted ways in September.

Fallon was appointed to the business in November 2004 and went on to produce award-winning work such as the print executions “hungover”, “gig meeting” and “split up”, which won a Grand Prix in the Outdoor category at Cannes in 2006.   read the full story here

Philips has split its £300m global media planning and buying business between Carat and MPG Media Contacts.

MPG wrestled the planning and buying for the Philips consumer lifestyle business across France, southern Europe and parts of America from Carat, the incumbent.

Carat has retained the media account for the remainder of the consumer lifestyle business, as well as across the Philips corporate organization.

Antonio Hidalgo, chief innovation, marketing and strategy officer at Philips consumer lifestyle, said: “Continuing our relationship with Carat is testimony to the strength of their strategic offering and the trusted partnership we have built in the recent years 

Philips has split its £300m global media planning and buying business between Carat and MPG Media Contacts.

MPG wrestled the planning and buying for the Philips consumer lifestyle business across France, southern Europe and parts of America from Carat, the incumbent.

Carat has retained the media account for the remainder of the consumer lifestyle business, as well as across the Philips corporate organization.

Antonio Hidalgo, chief innovation, marketing and strategy officer at Philips consumer lifestyle, said: “Continuing our relationship with Carat is testimony to the strength of their strategic offering and the trusted partnership we have built in the recent years Read full story here

As well as taking on the responsibility of becoming an Engine partner, Turner will also take the lead on the Microsoft account. He will report to Jam’s managing director, Alex Miller, who he worked with at the now defunct digital agency i-level.

Turner joins from Gum, the media arm of digital agency Grand Union, where he was managing director. He launched the division in 2010, working on a range of clients including Waitrose, P&G, Pernod Ricard and Freeview.

Prior to Gum, Turner spent seven years at digital media agency i-level, where he left as head of media.

read full story here

Carat has today been named the top-ranking UK media agency for new business in the Recma league tables, beating MediaCom and MEC into second and third respectively.

The Recma agency league is designed to track the development and performance of media agencies.

A total of 15 UK media agencies were ranked according to criteria across four categories: competitiveness, momentum, resources, and client profile.

Each agency’s pitch performance, market-share growth, quality of clients and digital resources over the past three years were also assessed.

Read the complete story here