• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, February 13, 2012

Car rental company Avis has awarded its media assignment to Spark Communications, the Chicago-based unit of Publicis Groupe.

According to Kantar Media, the client spent approximately $50 million on ads for the first nine months of 2011, a sizeable boost from the estimated $28 million that the ad tracker said Avis spent in all of 2010.

Both the media and creative portions of the account went into review late last year. WPP’s MediaCom was the incumbent on the media assignment, but opted not to defend. It was not immediately clear who the other contenders were.

McCann-Erickson is the creative incumbent on the account. It could not be immediately determined if the client had made a decision on the creative portion of the review. Reps at Avis and McCann did not respond to queries.