Patterson loses most of Telstra account

In a meeting with Telstra executives, Patts' new management was told it had lost the consumer and some business projects to rival advertising agencies after consistently poor performance.

The recent campaign starring Dustin Hoffman to promote Telstra's Next G mobile phones was a disaster and a factor in the decision, sources said.

Four years ago Telstra delivered Patts revenue of between $10 million and $15 million a year, but in the past two years that figure has steadily fallen.

Yesterday the managing director of Patts Sydney, Julie Porter, who has been in the job less than a month, said it was a significant loss. She could not rule out more redundancies. Two weeks ago the agency laid off 24 staff.

Patts can take some consolation in the fact that it remains on Telstra's roster of agencies and will retain the relationship marketing portion of the account, which involves analysing data on Telstra customers and mailouts to them.

In the past month, a brand campaign revising the "I am Australian" jingle that should have been handled by Patts was executed by Singleton Ogilvy & Mather, which will pick up Telstra's consumer and brand work. The business portion of the account, which was handled by SO&M, now moves to BWM, which has handled the Bigpond work for several years. It will now have the biggest share of Telstra's account. Bigpond's former marketing director, Amanda Johnston, who is moving into a new role as Telstra's lead marketer, oversaw the changes.

Ms Porter said: "We need to consolidate and rebuild the Patts brand. It will take a year, maybe two, but that process starts today."

Telstra confirmed the changes in a statement yesterday: "We are moving some work assignments around within our roster of agencies," it said. A spokesman declined to elaborate.