OCBC retains Y&R

Singapore - OCBC has retained its incumbent of nearly three years, Y&R to its regional creative account following an intense and somewhat controversial pitch.

OCBC's head of group corporate communications, Koh Ching Ching confirmed Y&R had been re-appointed to support all its advertising activities, including both ATL and BTL work, which was pitched for separately. It is believed Euro RSCG and Bates 141 were among the agencies involved in the final rounds of the ATL and BTL pitches respectively.

"This pitch exercise met our objective of ensuring that OCBC Bank continues to work with an agency with the best fit to support our strategic brand and marketing communications programmes in Singapore and beyond," she said.

When informed of the news, Y&R Singapore's Group CEO Network Hub, Tanuj Philip issued a statement to Marketing which thanked the bank for the opportunity to "reaffirm our resolve, resources and readiness to help take their brand and business to the next level".

"To call this pitch rigorous would be an understatement. Using a relevant sporting analogy, this pitch wasn't a sprint but rather a decathlon which demanded Y&R to demonstrate our excellence across our full range of talent and specialist offerings beyond advertising. Our seamless response, from brand consultancy to sales activation to non-traditional customer engagement channels and their integration across all segments and touchpoints, helped us win both the ATL and BTL pitches," he said.

The account came into play in June as part of the bank's regular review of agency partnerships but media reports speculating that a number of agency pull outs was hampering the review process, forced OCBC on the defensive.