by Herman Manson (@marklives) Absa Bank is putting its creative advertising account out to pitch, several agencies invited to submit RFIs have confirmed. A request for information serves to collect written information about the capabilities of possible suppliers.
Thabang Skwambane, FCB Joburg managing director, confirmed that the agency had been officially notified that a portion of the Absa account is going out to pitch and that the agency would be participating. “Because of the lengthy pitch procedures, FCB Joburg would also continue working to deliver the 2019/2020 campaigns already briefed into the agency,” he told MarkLives.
FCB Africa won the consumer component of the then Barclays Africa Group (since rebranded to Absa) advertising account in August 2016; Mortimer Harvey won the business-to-business component.
Absa is the third major bank to go out to pitch over the course of the last year. Standard Bank appointed M&C Saatchi Abel as its new through-the-line (TTL) ad agency in June 2019, also tapping Ogilvy South Africa as its brand agency, Clockwork Media as its consumer PR (retail and business) agency, and Edelman as its key corporate reputation management agency. At the end of 2018, Nedbank appointed Joe Public United (previously its ATL agency) to its TTL account, with Levergy managing the sponsorship account and Digitas Liquorice managing digital creative.
The major banks are under significant preassure to perform in a tough economy and, with a range of new digital startup banks, including TymeBank, Discovery Bank and Bank Zero, having launched or set to launch this year, and, of course, Capitec, which continues its spectacular rise unabated and has moved into credit and business banking services.
Herman Manson (@marklives) is the founder and editor of MarkLives.com.
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