Agency loses Lowe franchise

Staff at advertising agency Lowe Dubai are to go it alone after losing the franchise for the international agency, LOWE.

The Lowe name — and the lucrative global clients that go with it — will now come under the region’s Middle East Communication Networks group, Campaign can reveal. Many of the 45-strong Dubai-based team have apparently rejected offers to join MCN, which includes Fortune Promoseven, and will set up their own agency once the Lowe name is transferred at the end of April. The renamed agency will probably be called Brand Com and it will retain more than 20 clients, although the internationally-aligned business of Unilever and Johnson & Johnson will move under the Lowe umbrella to MCN. Lowe’s owner, Interpublic Group, which already has a stake in the MCN business, decided on the move following a spate of account losses worldwide.

(LOWE-Lintas is my first agency I started my career back in India 1997)