WPP has to deliver creativity for Boots.(WPP Group advertising agency, Boots Company drug stores in UK)(Brief Article)

WPP grabs 80 million [pounds sterling] Boots global work. What an unusual headline for a press release. No mention of J. Walter Thompson, which will handle the bulk of the business on behalf of its WPP parent. The coup is being presented emphatically as a WPP triumph.

Interestingly, the deal seems to have been thrashed out in secrecy between Martin Sorrell, WPP's group chief executive, and his Boots counterpart, Steve Russell. For Sorrell, the win is a perfect endorsement of WPP's multidisciplined structure, which he has been putting in place to adapt to the highly flexible and ever-changing global communications marketplace. Having turned WPP into a many-faceted communications company, he is now enabling the various WPP entities to operate with a growing degree of cross-fertilisation.

While JWT handles the high-profile work -- augmenting a relationship that began six years ago, despite an indifferent start with its "love Boots" campaign -- much will also cascade down to other WPP subsidiaries specialising in market research, PR and branding.

WPP will provide a high comfort factor for a company whose aggressive international expansion plan belies its 129-year history and familiar presence on the high street. Behind the name lies a highly ...