OCBC appoints McCann Erickson Singapore

McCann was down to the final two alongside Euro RSCG when the pitch reached its final phase two weeks ago.

“We confirm that we have appointed McCann Erickson as our advertising agency with effect from July 2011. The agency will support OCBC Bank in our brand and marketing communications programmes,” said Koh Ching Ching, head, group corporate communications, OCBC Bank.

Koh said that over the years, customer communication had evolved and become multi-disciplinary, requiring organisations to communicate effectively to different customer segments.  "We look forward to working with McCann Erickson to raise the OCBC brand to the next level."

Various agencies were known to have been in talks with OCBC since the bank’s announcement that it was parting ways with its agency of five years Y&R.

“OCBC Bank is taking the bold step of starting afresh and will not be including Y&R in the pitch, as it searches for a new creative agency,” said a company statement issued on 12 April.

At the time, Koh said it was OCBC’s practice to regularly seek new perspectives for profiling the brand.

OCBC recently launched new youth-skewed brand Frank with a campaign from Wild Advertising.

This is McCann's first major win since the appointment of Ben Lightfoot as CEO McCann Worldgroup.

Lightfoot said that in the agency's opinion the key to the pitch was the realisation of its shared values and a particular focus on honesty.

"From start to finish we had great chemistry which enabled us to have very open discussions about OCBC’s business and our own. Going forward we will continue to collaborate in this way, building a multi-disciplinary marketing communications programme, and the agency team to deliver this, with maximum impact."