The agency won the account from JWT Shanghai, a source at JWT confirmed.
According to BBH, the Alpenliebe candy has been in China since 1996 and accounts for more than 70 per cent of Perfetti Van Melle’s revenue in the market.
The win strengthens BBH’s relationship with the candy maker. Since 2005, BBH Shanghai has been the agency-of-record for Mentos in China and has launched a series of campaigns for the brand across the market, region, Europe and the United States.
BBH also works with Perfetti Van Melle on four other global accounts including Chupa Chups' global creative account, Mentos’ global account and Frisk and Vigorsol’s European business.
The Chupa Chups account, awarded in May 2008, was BBH’s first global client to be run out of Singapore.
“[BBH’s] work on Mentos speaks for itself,” said Limin Ma, marketing director for Perfetti Van Melle China. “We strongly believe that under the strategic and creative guidance of BBH, the Alpenliebe brand will see a major shift in both brand image and returns.”
Alpenliebe is one of sixteen candy brands produced by Perfetti Van Melle.
The account win comes months after the Dutch-Italian confectionary company split its China media business between Carat and ZenithOptimedia, displacing incumbent Maxus. Carat now handles Perfetti’s Mentos, Chupa Chups and Big Babol brands, while Zenith works on Alpenliebe.