ADLAND was galvanised Friday with news a big telecommunications account is up for grabs and an ad agency has finally been appointed to sell Australia as a tourist destination to the world, after a lengthy search.

After weeks of denials, the listed marketing services company STW Communications was forced to acknowledge it stands to lose the $30million Vodafone creative advertising account. STW, which built a bespoke unit to handle all the mobile phone company's marketing communications, has been invited to pitch, but it is not clear if it will do so. The company did not return calls from the Herald.

At the Ultimo offices of the advertising group DDB Australia, champagne flowed on news it had triumphed in a head-to-head with Saatchi & Saatchi to win the $180 million global account for Tourism Australia.

The agency, which counts McDonald's and Wrigleys among its clients, will begin work immediately on maximising the global marketing and promotional opportunities presented by the Baz Luhrmann movie Australia, due for release in November. After a search lasting six months, DDB's appointment marks the end of the controversial "Where the bloody hell are you?" campaign, which the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, last week called a "rolled-gold disaster".

The Tourism Australia managing director, Geoff Buckley, said the "movie offers huge potential to put Australia in the spotlight globally and ignite the Australia brand to motivate people who will see the movie to then see the country".

Just as one door closes another opens. On Monday Vodafone is sending out a tender document for all of its marketing communications to a "small number of pre-selected Australian ad agencies", which are understood to include Saatchi & Saatchi, Whybin/TBWA and Clemenger BBDO. Vodafone's general manager for brand and communications, Craig Herbison, ruled out using small agencies because of the volume of work the telecom's marketing generates. Nor did he envisage a return to the one-stop shop model - where a unit of dedicated staff drawn from STW's different companies worked exclusively on the business - opting instead for a best-in-breed approach to agency selection. Mr Herbison said: "If that means that we get the best direct marketing agency and the best brand agency and the best online … and they happen to be in one group - fine. But it if means they [are sitting] within a number of groups then I hope they would be able to work together seamlessly."

Three weeks ago, the STW chief, Mike Connaghan, denied to the Herald that any changes were afoot on the account, which delivers the group about $7 million in revenue annually. Then last week, on the eve of the launch of a new TV advertising campaign created by another agency, his office continued to insist it "knew nothing about the new arrangement".