McConnells strengthens links to Lowe Lintas

The growing links between Irish agency McConnells and international network Lowe Lintas is the subject of much speculation in industry circles.

McConnells is the largest full service marketing communications company in the State and, over the years - while other Irish agencies were being bought over by international networks - it has remained privately owned and independent.

As a private company with 100 employees, its turnover is not publicly available but, on the basis of billings and output, the figure is generally thought to be about £45 million (#57 million). A full sale of the company would mean substantial windfalls for the nine shareholders.

McConnells' main clients include Eircom, AIB, the National Lottery, Kellogg's, Statoil and Lever Brothers.

The agency is known to have been in talks with Lowe Lintas since late last year. Earlier this year, Lowe Lintas clients started to move to the Dublin agency, including Unilever Bestfoods, Unilever's food division. McConnells already works on several Unilever brands, most notably Surf.

However, the account move that has triggered the most speculation over McConnells' new relationship with Lowe Lintas is Tesco. More than two years ago Lowe's, which has the Tesco account in the UK, was in Dublin seeing independent agencies with a view to acquisition - the idea being that Tesco would then be with the same agency in both markets. Earlier this year, Tesco quietly moved to McConnells from Des O'Meara.

McConnells refuses to comment on industry speculation that it has been acquired and Lowe Lintas is similarly reluctant to comment. McConnells' reticence in elaborating on this new relationship is likely to be due in part to its client list, as there would appear to be several potential conflicts of interest. McConnells handles Smithwicks, AIB and Kellogg's, while Lowe Lintas has Heineken, HSBC Bank and Weetabix.

Lowe Lintas & Partners Worldwide is the global advertising arm of the Lowe Group, which is ranked fourth among worldwide agency groups. It has billings of more than $12 billion (#14 billion).

Lowe is a member of the Interpublic Group of Companies, whose primary holdings include two wholly owned global advertising agency networks - McCann-Erickson WorldGroup and the Lowe Group.

In the past, global agencies coming to small markets such as Ireland were content to become affiliates of local agencies. But the trend now is for the multinationals to go for total buyouts - and Lowe is understood to have been looking for that arrangement.

Whatever the terms of the deal between McConnells and Lowe Lintas, the fact that the biggest player in the industry here would appear from recent account movements to be moving from total independence to some sort of global alignment is significant.

If negotiations between the two result in a buyout, Irish advertising will be dominated by multinationals.

bharrison@irish-times.ie