Publicis Groupe has bagged the global creative mandate of French supermarket chain Carrefour.
The size of the account is USD1.3 billion. Sources say that the decision to move the Carrefour account came soon after the appointment of former Nestle marketing head Lars Olofsson as Carrefour CEO. Nestle is a large Publicis client.
Prior to Publicis, most of the creative business was handled by Euro RSCG, Havas Media.
Meanwhile, in addition to Carrefour’s French advertising, Publicis will also be handling Carrefour’s creative in Asia and South America.
After bagging the global ad business, Publicis is expected to carve out a separate ad unit completely devoted to creating advertising for Carrefour.
The world’s second largest food retailer, Carrefour had earlier announced that it would be launching its retail stores in India sometime in 2009, beginning with north India.