SYDNEY: Vodafone marketing director Mike Beckerleg has stated he will strongly oppose any local change of agency when he meets with the companyÕs UK executives in two weeks to discuss a global creative and media alignment. Earlier this year, Vodafone global brand director David Haines announced he would commence talks with a number of networks as part of an agenda to globalise the brand. Part of the change is due to the fact Vodafone is known under several different names throughout Europe, and the company would like to standardise the name on its various sponsorship arrangements. ÒThe UK has certainly been getting information from us about our spends and what agencies we use. So they are definitely looking at it like most global companies do,Ó said Beckerleg, adding that he does not expect any local repercussions for some time. Beckerleg is dubious about work that comes from global alignments. ÒWe are going to talk to them in a couple of weeks to thrash it out, and put our view on the table. We will resist it obviously, as much as we can. I am not a big believer in [global alignments] working successfully very often. But at the end of the day, if they rule that we are going to go with one agency worldwide, no one is going to have much say in it.Ó Networks discussed in the UK include WPP and Omnicom. Locally, the bulk of the account is held by M&C Saatchi, with project work spread out among a few other agencies. Kris Ashton
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