The pitch took place in Q4 last year. At least three undisclosed agencies were involved in the final round.
The client has not worked with an agency before having done most of its media planning in-house.
“In the past, the client's various departments did their own marketing separately. Now the client wants to consolidate the business as its marketing budget has increased and it wants to be more aggressive in the increasingly competitive banking sector in China,” said Jonathan Tse, GM of MediaCom Beijing.
"Historically the overall media adspend for the banking sector in China is pretty small in comparison to Hong Kong and other international markets. It has largely been monopolised by the big four state-owned banks including Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China and ICBC. However, in recent years more private enterprises are joining the competition, and more of them are working with 4A agencies,” he added.
Equinox of ZenithOptimedia recently won the traditional media account for China Merchant Bank. MediaCom was the incumbent agency on the account.
MediaCom also works with The Royal Bank of Scotland.