by Herman Manson (@marklives) The Cell C advertising account is not out to pitch. Karin Fourie, Senior Manager: Public and Media Relations at Cell C, confirmed that the account 
is not being moved. “Ogilvy is still our agency of choice,” says Fourie.
It has been widely speculated in the ad industry that Cell C would be ill pleased to sit in the same group (WPP) as Vodacom (with Ireland/Davenport) and MTN (with MetropolitanRepublic) and that the account has gone out to pitch.
This follows Vodacom’s move from Draftfcb to WPP controlled Ireland/Davenport announced last week. Ogilvy Johannesburg, also a WPP company, retained the Cell C account last year after CEO Alan Knott-Craig pulled the plug on a pitch won by FoxP2 and King James.
Knott-Craig, during his tenure at Vodacom, worked closely with Draftfcb, which had held the Vodacom account for more than 19 years. Draftfcb has retrenched 40 staff members since the account loss was announced last week.
– Industry news you’ll make time for. Sign up for our free newsletter!
Didn’t Ogilvy also pitch on the Vodacom account? If I was Cell C, I wouldn’t be too happy to know that.
A WPP consortium called Team Red was shortlisted on the account alongside Ireland/Davenport.
Dude maybe it was called Team Red but everyone knows that it was headed by Ogilvy, including the CEO and head strategist.
Not sure who they think they are fooling. In any case isn’t Ireland Davenport part of the Ogilvy group, I always thought it was.