German car manufacturer BMW has awarded Accenture two contracts to help manage its digital marketing efforts.
The first contract will see Accenture manage the roll out of a new customer-facing web site across 100 of BMW's markets.
"Accenture is managing all aspects of the rollout, including the agencies involved, scoping digital requirements, training local content managers and agencies on the new platform and coordinating testing and post go-live support," it said in a statement.
Under the second contract, Accenture will manage the global implementation of BMW's centrally created digital marketing campaigns.
It will "manage content localisation for each market, including deployment to social media channels, starting with Facebook, as well as deployment to mobile versions of the site", Accenture said.
It is the second digital marketing contract win announcement from Accenture in the last week. Last Friday, it announced that it built a "digital social platform" for consumer goods giant Unilever.
Based on Salesforce.com's cloud platform, the new system will allow marketing employees to monitor social media sites, collaborate internally using Chatter, and create a central "hub" for each of its brands, where marketers and partners can collaboration on campaigns and content.
"This is nothing short of a marketing and technology transformation for Unilever," said Mark McClennon, CIO of Unilever's consumer division.
Accenture launched its digital marketing practice, Accenture Interactive, back in 2009. It counts 27 of the Fortune 50 among its customers, the company claims, and its services are used to manage $12 billion in marketing spend.
Last year, it boosted the practice with the acquisition of US-based digital production company avVenta Worldwide. Interestingly, avVenta delivers many of its services from a "digital production centre of excellence" in Costa Rica.
It is little wonder that Accenture is keen to move into the digital marketing arena. In an oft-cited statistic, analyst company Gartner predicts that by 2017, chief marketing officers will have larger technology budgets that CIOs.
Update Today Accenture also announced that it will be acquiring Fjord, a global service design consultancy that specialises in "creating digital experiences". The company's clients include Telefónica, the BBC and Nokia.
Earlier this year, BMW awarded a five-year IT infrastructure management contract to Infosys. The Indian IT provider replaced incumbent supplier T-Systems.
