Marina Bay Sands calls media pitch

The business was estimated at US$15 million when it was won by Starcom in May 2010 following a three-way closed door pitch process.

The RFP for the media business was called last Friday, 15 July.

Incumbent Starcom and MEC have both been linked to the pitch but neither agency was able to comment.

The regional account was previously handled by Mindshare Singapore which had overseen the business for a year after being appointed in February 2009.

On the creative side, Ogilvy & Mather Singapore was Marina Bay Sands’ last agency of record before they parted ways. Prior to that, creative duties were split between TBWA and Formul8.

O&M now handles much of Resorts World Sentosa’s (RWS) tactical advertising while the branding business still resides with Y&R. RWS's media planning and buying is with MPG, having previously been with OMD.

There have been a number of agency changes since Singapore’s two Integrated Resorts and Casinos (IR’s) opened their doors last year.

And one agency head points out that Marina Bay Sands has seen a number of changes in its heads of marketing, including the recent departure of Lucinda Semark, now with Carlson, who was replaced by Riad Shalaby.