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At least three agencies throw hats in the ring for $7m OCBC media account

GroupM’s Wavemaker is gearing up to do battle with at least two agency rivals for OCBC Singapore’s multi-million-dollar media account.

The agency, which formed out of Maxus and MEC last year, is preparing to defend its position as OCBC’s agency of record against Havas Media and Dentsu Aegis Network’s Vizeum after the bank called a recent pitch.

The account for all the bank’s divisions, understood to be worth more than S$7 million in billings, was handed to Maxus in 2016.

The pitch also includes OCBC’s private arm, the Bank of Singapore, as part of the company’s efforts to “streamline” its marketing through digitisation.

The bank’s head of group corporate communications Koh Ching Ching: “By leveraging data analytics and artificial intelligence, we have improved our customers’ experience throughout their banking journey with us – be it through offering better products or more seamlessly embedding our services in their everyday behaviour, for instance through facial and voice recognition. Digitalisation has also helped us streamline functions within the bank ranging from human resources to transaction monitoring.

“This digital DNA extends to our branding and marketing efforts as well. New digital solutions in media targeting and buying have given us the ability to communicate in innovative ways with highly targeted segments of our customers. This has redefined the role of the media agency of the future.

“We therefore found it timely to explore how agencies can offer us sharper digital media capabilities, so we can keep applying fresh ideas to entities across the OCBC Group, including Bank of Singapore.”

The agency’s retainer fee is understood to be in the six figure ballpark. The bank was unavailable for further comment.

In 2016, independent agency GOVT performed a coup d’etat when it won the bank’s creative account after battling against WPP heavyweight Ogilvy.

The agency went on to create last year’s ‘Stay True’ campaign, which saw the bank’s executives take a live-streamed lie detector test.

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