Mother battles for Siemens account.(Brief Article)

Siemens, the German telecoms and electronics giant, has picked Mother and Weiden & Kennedy in Amsterdam to fight it out for the task of promoting a new range of design-led mobile phone hardware to make the Siemens brand more appealing to young people.

The two shops were chosen after a trawl of about a dozen agencies around Europe in advance of an expected launch of the products later this year.

Industry sources say the groundwork, which has been shrouded in secrecy, is being carried out by a special unit within Siemens, operating at arm's length from the main company and investigating how to get young consumers to reappraise the Siemens brand.

The result will be a new range of products with an emphasis on style rather than technological wizardry.

The move is seen as a response to the fact that mobile phones have become a high volume but low margin business, whose future is dependent on new technology which is slow to arrive and for which consumer demand is unproven.

For Weiden & Kennedy, the assignment would complement the pounds 70 million Siemens global mobile phone business, which it has handled since the end of 2000.

Mother has not previously worked in ...