• Ad Age, Monday, December 3, 2007 12 PM

WPP Group has topped out Interpublic in a seven-month holding company battle over Dell's three-year, $4.5 billion account.The British advertising and marketing services conglomerate will now need to build a new agency with 1,000-plus staffers to take care of the computer-maker's global marketing needs. The two firms will "jointly develop what we hope is the greatest agency in the world," says Casey Jones, vice president, global marketing at Dell.

"This will be a nontraditional relationship, and the purpose of it is to achieve marketing objectives of Dell's that are simply not achievable either with our current roster of agencies or with a patchwork quilt of shops stitched together." The new agency, yet to be formally named, will handle everything from creative to media-planning to public relations.

But the new shop -- which should bring in some $150 million a year -- will even be able to vie for other accounts. The three-year contract will have total billings of about$1.5 billion annually.

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