Absa’s R500m advertising account is out to pitch, and a decision is likely to be made next week.
Should the account move to new agencies, it would be one of the biggest realignments in advertising in recent years. Altogether 10 agencies have been short-listed for the business-to-business and business-to-consumer spaces, and they have spent the past few weeks in tough presentations lasting up to four hours.
Absa head of marketing David Wingfield says while he was happy with the performance of the bank’s current agencies, including The Jupiter Drawing Room Johannesburg and Mortimer Harvey, the group thought it was time to re-examine relationships, as was standard industry practice.
Agencies were briefed on where the group’s business was going and what type of solutions they might offer. As many as 40 agencies who responded to an initial call were whittled down to the 10. All were asked to share future thinking in terms of business solutions. Wingfield stresses the process was not a creative pitch.
Pitching for the business-to-consumer side were Ogilvy, FCB, DDB, the Publicis group and a collective of agencies pulled together by the incumbent Jupiter Drawing Room, including Mortimer Harvey, Ogilvy Africa, Base 2 and Cerebra.
Agencies on the business-to-business short list include Mortimer Harvey, Ikineo, Demographica and Publicis Machine.