—Campaign first reported on the review in October 2022—

By Shauna Lewis

Omnicom Media Group will retain HSBC’s global media planning and buying account, following a pitch process which lasted more than six months.

Campaign revealed the bank was set to review globally in October 2022 and more recently reported the final contest was a two-way shoot-out between Omnicom and WPP in June.

Omnicom’s PHD previously won the account in 2018, following a three-way contest between WPP’s Mindshare and Dentsu’s Aegis network.

Prior to PHD, Mindshare handled the account for 13 years.

In Canada, HSBC could soon be taken over by RBC after the Competition Bureau approved the proposed $13.5-billion takeover late last week. Touché has been managing HSBC media in Canada.

During PHD’s tenure as media agency, HSBC has launched campaigns such as “Vicious circle”, a tie-up with Shelter that helped homeless people open bank accounts, and “Borders”, with Richard Ayoade. Both were created by WPP’s Wunderman Thompson. In Canada, Touché has handled the account.

A spokesperson for HSBC said: “HSBC periodically evaluates all marketing service suppliers to ensure we select the best partners to maximise the effectiveness of our investment to support our strategic goals. We have selected OMG as our preferred media planning and buying partner.”

OMG declined to comment on the appointment.

In a sign that Omnicom was likely to be mounting a fierce defence of the HSBC account, the holding company acquired Ptarmigan Media, a UK-based global media agency that specialises in financial services clients, in July.

Omnicom and Ptarmigan had worked together for many years and had a number of shared clients, including, notably, HSBC.

This article originally appeared at Campaign UK, with files from The Message.