Bank of Ireland and TBWA\Dublin are to go their separate ways as the bank explores options in relation to its creative agency roster. The bank continues to use Oliver as its in-house agency, along with other local agencies. However, industry sources have indicated to Marketing.ie that TBWA\Dublin is no longer part of the bank’s agency rota for the future.
Bank of Ireland’s group brand director Anne Mulcahy said she could not comment on the matter. Mulcahy joined the bank earlier this year from Vodafone, where she had been in charge of brand communications and insights. It was during her time at Vodafone that she worked with Grey London, which is part of the WPP agency network.
Bank of Ireland has been reviewing its creative services extensively in recent months and it is known they have been looking at some WPP options. In its efforts to find new creative services, the bank’s marketing team has been frustrated by conflicts of interest with a long list of major financial companies already well bedded in at other top Dublin agencies.
The bank’s creative moved from BBDO Dublin to TBWA. Both agencies are part of the Omnicom network. TBWA rolled out the bank’s ‘Begin’ TV and print campaign earlier this year, working to CMO Henry Dummer. When ‘Begin’ was launched, Dummer said the insight at the heart of the campaign was that people cannot thrive unless they ‘begin’.
TBWA’s highly-rated executive creative director John Kane headed up the team that created ‘Begin’. However, it is not known to what extent Kane is still in charge of creative at TBWA\Dublin. Agency boss Deirdre Waldron announced that two BBDO Dublin creatives, Clayton Homer and Dillon Elliott, are to move to TBWA as executive creative directors.
Waldron was not available for comment about Bank of Ireland.
