Commonwealth Bank is reviewing its media buying account, through which Ikon Communication places around $45 million in annual ad spending for the bank.
CBA told
The Australian the review was for reasons of governance and not because the bank was shirty with Ikon and its owner, STW Communications, given sharp criticism of the bank's new advertising campaign by a former STW director, John Singleton (with the latter being the newspaper's take on the reasons for the review).
CBA marketing chief Mark Buckman told The Australian "I certainly wasn't appreciative of comments being made by parties within that STW family about our appointment of Goodby [Silverstein]. We expect all of the parties we do business with to reflect that value of the business the Commonwealth Bank provides for them," he said.
Buckman said STW since provided the assurances and Ikon would not be included in the review if it did not have a chance of retaining the account.
"This is a corporate governance review," Buckman said. "This isn't a matter of dissatisfaction with our relationship with Ikon. We review everything from our suppliers of paper to travel, on an ongoing basis."
The newspaper reported that two offshore media buying agencies - PHD and Vizeum - are on the shortlist along with communications planning agency, Naked.
But last week the bank confirmed it had moved digital creative work formerly handled by Ikon to its creative agencies Goodby and BMF.
Mr Buckman said the bank now had stringent measures in place to measure its campaigns independently of its agencies.