Editorial: Reckitt's account move shows JWT's weakness.(Vincent Bollore and Martin Sorrell speaks on JWT's appointments)(Editorial)

Havas' chairman, Vincent Bollore, and WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell have been careful to compliment each other in the press recently.

Bollore, in his recent profile with Campaign, noted how much he would like to do business with Sorrell, and last week, as Sorrell announced the WPP half-yearly figures, he took pains to comment that he felt Aegis owed Bollore two board seats. The mutual admiration is most likely the scent of a potential alliance in an Aegis takeover, but this goodwill must have been tested this week as Havas swiped WPP's and Interpublic's share of the dollars 1.5 billion Reckitt Benckiser account.

It was a crucial win as the newly appointed David Jones shapes the Euro RSCG network. But it was also a painful loss for JWT, particularly its London office, which ran the account. The network appears to have lost its London mojo. JWT is still the second-biggest agency in billings terms in London, but its reputation lags far behind its scale. This is, in part, a careless side-effect of all the love and attention Sorrell has been lavishing on the network over the ...