Land Securities defends Scottish appointment process against agency complaints
Land Securities has moved to defend its appointment process of Scottish communications agencies for five shopping centres after agencies involved queried the appointment process and highlighted the personal relationship between one of the senior marketing directors and a member of staff of the winning agency.
Creative agencies which pitched for the advertising and newly created digital accounts for five Scottish shopping centres owned by Land Securities; Overgate in Dundee, Bon Accord and St Nicholas shopping centres in Aberdeen and The Centre in Livingston, have questioned why they were not informed that Samantha Stewart, regional marketing manager for Land Securities, is the partner of one of the head of digital for Good Creative, which was ultimately appointed to both the advertising and the newly created digital contracts.
One agency, D8, is also understood to have made an official complaint to Land Securities upon learning of the relationship and the company claims to have spoken to the Glasgow agency in an effort to address the complaint.
Several of the agencies involved in the process have contacted The Drum to query the procedure and the result as a consequence of learning the result and hearing of the relationship.
A spokesperson for Land Securities explained that the company, which owns shopping centres across the UK, had recently introduced a regional consumer marketing structure with the aim of increasing efficiencies and delivering best practice across the shopping centre portfolio.
“Regional agencies will be selected for each discipline to ensure the delivery of the best possible marketing solutions for each shopping centre.
“We have recently concluded the Scottish region pitch process and will be making formal appointments shortly.
“The Scottish region pitch process involved the regional marketing manager and the marketing managers from each of the four Centres in the region and was attended by the Land Securities head of retail marketing and the head of consumer marketing.
“Agencies were selected for the pitch based on their response to the brief, track record with Land Securities and their reputation in their field.
“The decision on the winning agencies in this case was unanimous and the following agencies will be appointed: Good Creative and Beattie Communications,” the spokesperson concluded.
Beattie Communications was appointed following a competitive pitch for the PR account for the five centres.