What's Carat's secret in managing client conflict?(Brief Article)

Carat may have held on to both Renault and PSA, but for how long?

So Carat and BBJ have pulled off the seemingly impossible and held on to both the 75 million [pounds sterling] UK Peugeot-Citroen business and the 360 million [pounds sterling] pan-European Renault account.

The Aegis agencies now hold three pieces of major car business (Carat also handles the more high-end BMW in Europe), all of which were won since the start of the year.

Many thought that Carat and BBJ would be forced to resign the PSA account following Carat's triumph in the fiercely contested Renault pitch last month. However, after weeks of discussions, Aegis has convinced both rival French car producers to leave their business with them.

Under the new arrangement, the Renault account will move into Carat from January, with the entire PSA business shifting to BBJ.

This represents a significant climbdown by PSA, since the initial appointment involved splitting the two accounts, with Peugeot going into BBJ and Citroen into Carat. It was an arrangement that suited the two car divisions' desire for autonomy.

Furthermore, sources close to PSA suggest that when Carat and BBJ won the business in early July, Carat assured its new client that it would pull out of the Renault pitch. Instead, Carat decided to go for broke and, within two months, was staring at the most tangled case of client conflict that media agencies have seen in years.