DDB Lagos toasts to Diageo pitch win

Under the mentorship of Ikechi Odigbo, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, DDB Lagos, has emerged as the pitch winner for the Diageo Nigeria Plc. spirits portfolio which includes Baileys, Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Ciroc, McDowells and Gordons brands.

The pitch process started in February and ended in April this year.

The CEO in a statement has  this to say about the Diageo win: “It is hard to find the right words about this news…I think the words are best summed up by the legendary Bob Scarpelli, former Chief Creative Officer of DDB Worldwide in a note he once wrote: “..win or lose, we always learn something about ourselves from a pitch.  What I’ve learned through all my years here is that we are a proud, resilient group.  We are winners.  We are fighters. We don’t give up.  And we always have the attitude that when we don’t win one, we’re going to win the next one.  Most of the time, we do…”

For us, it is the testament of the hard work of the team. We are structured more like a medium sized agency handling billings of a large agency. Being able to divert resources to pitch from existing accounts is a big challenge but we have stuck to our policy of having the highest billing ratio per executive because we want to be sure that whoever is working within DDB Lagos is outstanding and we are not just bringing in bodies, bringing in numbers and at the end of the day diluting the quality. We are very happy with our new client and the entire credit goes to the team who worked directly on the pitch and also a big thanks to everyone in the Group for their total support and confidence We are proud of this win and very confident this gives wind to our sails for more conquests ahead!” Odigbo further said.

Last year, DDB Lagos also successfully added five new accounts to its portfolio. New businesses included Olam, an Asian multinational dealing in confectioneries, beverages and other products, Wakanow, Nigeria’s online travel company, Huawei, the Asian technology experts, Verve and Quickteller from Interswitch, payment platform professionals and Africa Re, insurance specialists.

For over a decade, DDB Lagos has continued to maintain a front row seat in the highly competitive advertising business in Nigeria and West Africa. A consistent winner at the LAIF (Lagos Ideas and Advertising Festival) awards since 2006,the company holds over 60 awards, making the firm one of  the most awarded agencies in the history of the LAIF Awards. DDB Lagos also has it’s footprints on the international stage where it became the first Nigerian agency to pick up prestigious awards at the EPICA and the African Cristal Award Festivals.

Director of Business Development of DDB Lagos, Tunde Dosekun, while talking about the win, spoke about one of the fundamental elements of DDB’s success. According to him in a statement, “When you have the benefit of working for brands like MTN, Unilever, Interswitch and a host of other clients that we have had, I think it is almost only inevitable that you will achieve success because these are leading brands in their respective categories.

The objective at DDB Lagos has never been to win awards but to help clients’ product and services to gain superior market share in the marketplace and to achieve their marketing objectives, whatever they may be.”

Indeed, every success story of DDB Lagos owed something to the agency’s commitment to the philosophy of going the extra mile and putting clients and their brands first to ensure that the brands continue to win against market competition.

According to Tunde Dosekun,“DDB Lagos does not only deliver advertising solutions because it recognizes that the solution required may be beyond advertising. What is paramount to the agency is to deliver creative business solutions that fulfill clients’ needs.”

Founded by Enyi Odigbo as Casers Advertising in 1987, DDB Lagos,an affiliate of DDB Worldwide and part of the Omnicom Group, was among the second wave of indigenous ad agencies that demonstrated in practical terms that Nigerians were prepared to change the fortune of the ad industry.