Dude, You're Losing an Account

Computer giant Dell has chosen WPP to handle all of its global advertising and marketing - bringing to one agency $4.5 billion worth of billings that had been spread among an astonishing 800 agencies world wide. The Wall Street Journal reports Dell and WPP will strike a unique partnership to create a new firm that will handle all of Dell's product promotion business.

"We think with Dell there is a big opportunity to develop a fully integrated approach that goes across all the marketing and advertising disciplines," said Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP. Mark Jarvis, Dell's chief marketing officer, forecasts: "We are going to have an agency relationship unlike any other." (More Dell stories.)