Fresh from winning the big Auckland promotional pitch for the Rugby World Cup, Ogilvy is crowing again, after it picked up the expanded portfolio of Pharmacybrands following a competitive pitch between incumbents Ogilvy and JWT.
Pharmacybrands, which owns the Unichem and Amcal brands, recently merged with Life Pharmacy group and brought all three brands together into one agency. But wait, there’s more: the Radius Group of Pharmacies is now also under its umbrella, which brings the total number of franchisee pharmacies within the group to around 300 and Pharmacybrands has an equity interest in 68 of them.
Pharmacybrands head of merchandise and marketing, Phil Huddleston, says the company went with Ogilvy because of “its experience in the sector through previous involvement with the Life Pharmacy brand, its acknowledged expertise in the retail sector and its ability to deliver key learnings and solutions to drive pharmacy in the ever increasingly competitive retail market place”.
Ogilvy’s managing director Greg Partington says the agency would be using its full range of assets, including its data management, creative and digital teams, to ensure Pharmacybrand retailers have strong brand and marketing support.
“We will be working hard to ensure that pharmacists within the group continue to develop strong retail businesses,” Partington says. “Our substantial experience at the retail interface means we can strongly support Pharmacybrands’ growth strategy by providing them with highly effective and creative advertising concepts and take full advantage of our totally integrated capability to deliver excellent service to our client.”
