Woolworths appoints PPR to its public relations account
Supermarket giant Woolworths has appointed WPP-owned PPR to manage its public relations account, Mumbrella can reveal.
Woolworths pitched its account in March, parting ways from incumbent agency One Green Bean after three years.
The agency has moved away from the creative led PR agency to a more corporate-style firm in PPR who have clients including Dell, Officeworks, McDonald’s, National Trust and Mortgage Choice.
For PPR, the win follows on from the agency picking up the social media account for Colgate-Palmolive last month.
Woolwoths has also appointed a new public relations manager, Menreet Kaur, who formerly worked at PPR as a senior account manager for four-and-a-half years.
Kaur has been appointed as public relations manager for Woolworths
Andrew Hicks, Woolworths director of marketing, said: “With our marketing evolving and our internal team structure changing, we felt the time was right to review the support we required from our PR agency partner.
“In our RFP review process, PPR was able to demonstrate extensive experience in the supermarket sector, along with an unrivaled capacity, with their unique footprint, to support the delivery of our campaigns at a national and local level in the most efficient and effective way.
“We’d like to thank our incumbent One Green Bean for their work in supporting the marketing and PR for Woolworths over the last four years.
“As we transition our agency arrangements to PPR, the One Green Bean team will complete working with us over the next couple of months on a number of projects in both the PR and influencer space,” Hicks said.
Michael Pooley, COO at PPR, told Mumbrella: “Woolworths is an iconic Australian brand and we are honoured that PPR has been chosen to support it. We’re excited with the possibilities the partnership will bring and look forward to supporting Woolworths through our unique national network of PPR consultants to support the brand wherever it needs to be.”
Abigail Dawson was Mumbrella's senior content journalist covering event content. She left Mumbrella to move into an agency role in 2020.
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So let me get this straight. Ex PPR guy appoints new PR Manager from PPR and they also appoint PPR as their new PR agency.
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Ah, that doesn’t feel right. A few questions that Mumbrella should have asked (or could in a follow up)…
– Were other bidding agencies informed they were up against PPR?
– Did former PPR staff recuse themselves from the decision?
– Does Woolworths – a public company – have any obligation to transparency?
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But who else would want to work on the worst marketing account in Australia…
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So, is poor old Woolies trying again to recapture some of its old sense, after one stupidity and marketing error after another ….’ We are not worried about Aldi…”. Dux replaced with lower grade ‘take away’ …… Metro..
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A new direction in PR? We’ll see!
I will start my comment of dissatisfaction regarding the alternatives to plastic bags here. I am from Merimbula and am now holidaying in Forster. I have in recent days been to half a dozen Woolworths stores searching for an alternative to plastic bags simply to use in my rubbish bins. In Europe and the US there are strong paper bags with reinforced bases. There has been much research into corn starch bags, yet none of this sort of approach seems to be where you as an organisation is heading. Woolworths takes more of my money than any other, seriously, so I feel it is fair that I have my say here and hope to hear from someone within your organisation or your PR group with clout. Merimbula will soon have an Aldi. You will permanently lose me as a customer, not just for the neglect in your performance on this and other environmental issues, but because you continually make poor decisions for our future. You are in a position where you could be great educators, and could really achieve exceptional things, but you DON’T. I’d like to know if there are any plans to improve your neglectful ways.
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