Western Australian bank P&N Bank has appointed full-service agency 303Lowe to its creative and digital advertising accounts, following a major competitive pitch.
303Lowe will be responsible for driving a new brand strategy as the WA bank looks to take on the bigger financial institutions and provide “genuine competition” within the banking sector.
The appointment follows a major internal brand strategy review. 303Lowe will replace P&N’s incumbent agencies The Brand Agency and Meerkats.
P&N senior manager marketing Anna Pearce, said, “With the new strategy in development, it was logical to put our account out to pitch, to test the market and ensure we have the right strategic partner.
“At the end of the strategic and creative pitching process, 303Lowe were judged to have hit the mark in terms of their strategic thinking, brand planning and creative capability in both offline and online channels. We believe that 303Lowe illustrated a strong understanding of the strategic direction that we want to pursue as a customer-owned bank.”
“P&N believes we have a critical role to play in improving the lives of Western Australians by providing genuine competition to the traditional banking model dominated by the major banks,” added Pearce.
“Given the large marketing budgets of the major banks we are clearly competing in a very crowded space. The big banks will outspend us, so we need to connect strongly with consumers based on articulating our value proposition creatively and maximising the value of our media spend.
“In short we need to do more with less, and look forward to seeing where the creative journey with a new agency takes us.”
303Lowe group managing director Al Taylor, said, “P&N Bank is a great business that has a genuine appetite to do interesting and category-challenging work. We are really excited to begin working with the team at P&N as they embark on a bold new strategic direction.
“They’re a great team who, from the outset, we really wanted to work with and who, I think, saw our passion as authentic.”
The appointment is effective from May 2015.
