P&N Bank appoints 303LOWE
P&N Bank has appointed 303LOWE to its creative and digital advertising accounts, as the financial institution prepares to take its marketing in a new direction.
The decision means P&N Bank will move away from a long relationship with Meerkats, the agency that rebranded it from Police and Nurses in March 2013, and from The Brand Agency, which handled its digital communications.
P&N senior manager of marketing Anna Pearce said the appointment followed a major brand strategy review designed to help the WA-based bank compete with the bigger banks, which can afford to significantly outspend it on marketing.
“We have enjoyed a long and valuable relationship with Meerkats as our lead creative agency and Brand Agency as our digital communications partner, and we would like to pay tribute to the significant role they have both played in helping P&N Bank enhance its brand positioning,” Ms Pearce said.
“However, with the new strategy in development, it was logical to put our account out to pitch, to test the market and ensure we had the right strategic partner.
“At the end of the strategic and creative pitching process, 303Lowe was judged to have hit the mark in terms of their strategic thinking, brand planning and creative capability in offline and online channels.”
303LOWE group managing director Al Taylor said the agency team was “beyond excited” about the appointment.
“It’s a great business that has a genuine appetite to do interesting and category-challenging work,” he said.
“But more importantly they’re a great team who, from the outset, we really wanted to work with and who, I think, saw our passion as authentic.”
Ms Pearce said the P&N marketing and brand team had been impressed by the overall quality of the pitches from local agencies but 303LOWE had “illustrated a strong understanding of the strategic direction” the bank wanted to pursue.
“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,” she said.
“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.”
The account will transition across over the next month.
