After nearly 15 years NAB breaks up with Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne; hands creative account to TBWA Melbourne after review
After nearly 15 years NAB has broken up with Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne, handing its prized creative account to sister Omincom agency TBWA Melbourne.
The win makes up for TBWA’s loss of the ANZ business, which was won by Special Group in May.
Says Suzana Ristevski, executive group marketing, NAB: “We are excited to have landed on TBWA as the new lead creative agency to join our existing agency panel. It was a collaborative and considered decision that we believe sets us up well for the future.
“We would particularly like to thank Clemenger BBDO Melbourne with whom we’ve shared a very successful partnership over the past 14+ years.
“We thank all agencies who were involved for their professionalism and engagement in what has been a robust review of our existing brand identity and creative execution.”
Says Kimberlee Wells, CEO of TBWA Melbourne: “This is a proud moment for TBWA. It’s especially meaningful to join with NAB during this time. We’ve been truly inspired by their commitment to serving their customers and Australian businesses.”
“We are very excited to take on this new partnership and do so with a huge amount of respect for the incumbent Clemenger BBDO and the work they have created with NAB. We look forward to getting started.”
Says Clemenger BBDO Melbourne group CEO Jim Gall: “Clemenger BBDO are extremely proud of our record and work for NAB, spanning some 14+ years. From ‘Break Up’, to ‘More than Money’ and ‘Mini Legends’ we’ve created impactful and effective campaigns that have helped guide NAB to standout NPS and consumer trust scores and delivered market-leading impact. We thank NAB for their trust and partnership over our long relationship and wish them well for the future.”
31 Comments
Don’t have much to say outside the obvious – agency saving win for TBWA, back breaking lose for Clems.
I am mainly just commenting to see how long it takes for this comment to go live, as I can only imagine the landslide of schadenfreude and gloating that will be headed this way and keeping the CB comment moderators extremely busy.
Congrats TBWA, massive win. Condolences to Clems who no doubt will have to lose people. Would be incredible if we as an industry could refrain from negative comments here and rather think of the people who this affects harshly.
15 years in this market is an admirable time to keep a client, so well done to everyone at Clems that kept that going. Keep your heads up.
And congratulations to the team at TBWA for a win that I’m sure they fought hard for.
As they say, all good things must come to an end. Eventually.
Some of the work that Clems did for NAB was nothing short of brilliant. Many talented people worked tirelessly on the account over the years and it went from the account nobody wanted to work on (why would you when the beer account was flying) to the star of the agency.
The Special Group should take the title of the disruption agency. Truly disrupted the market. Well done to TBWA for the win. And Hopefully Clems won’t have to see a massive round of redundancies.
Hats off to TBWA and Clems. They have both created fantastic award winning work for ANZ and NAB respectively over the past decade.
Congratulations and commiserations to both great teams.
Huge win for TBWA. Devastating loss for clams, will be particularly interested to see where the axe swings…
You can guarantee it wont be at the exec level where it should!
Can’t wait to see Special and TBWA now go head-to-head in the category.
This will obviously suck big time but at the same time, it’ll be a once in a decade opportunity to dig out some of the issues with the deepest roots. You don’t often get a chance to truly have a fresh start as an agency – I worry that the new leadership will lack the vision and fortitude to make the hard calls to set them back on the right path.
Translation – time to free up some of those ECD salaries.
you should leave. Life lessons.
15 years! Wow! Hopefully they are that loyal to TBWA because that’s an amazing pot of recurring revenue.
no agency ever wants to lose an account worth that much. At the same time, man, it was a meat grinder.
When I was at Clems I saw 3 different senior suits in 18 month recruited (some from overseas) to come in and run it and no one lasted 6 months. People who worked on it were all broken sooner rather than later.
Genuine chance to build back a better agency with less burnout, broken folks. If you do it right.
And obviously, this is Clems, so that is an *if* roughly the size of mt everest
Safe pair of hands make for safe ads. NAB got in bed with ANZ-ex partner. The account will be safe. But will it be awesome? I know where my bet is.
I mean Wooo!
With 19 Cannes Lions over 8 years across 7 different campaigns for ANZ – Bring on the awesome!
Could be an opportunity for them to finally stop taking pride in burning out their staff.
I remember going to the bathroom there a while ago and seeing uncomfortably self-aware posters on the back of the cubicle doors saying something along the lines of “Deep breaths” and “everything is going to be ok”. Not cool.
Couldn’t agree more. The second I saw it was going to TBWA my first thought was “oh…”
At least we won’t have to see the insufferable award posts about the 400th iteration of GAYTM’s spammed all over LinkedIn anymore.
I don’t work at TBWA, but how are differently executed campaigns every year for ANZ’s Mardi Gras sponsorship ‘insufferable’ to you?
Quality of life is worth “more than money”. Good luck to TBWA.
Did you miss the part where I said “award posts?
Geez, selective hearing much?
@pros and cons. Do you reckon the NAB account churn at Clems and the broken folks was down to the client or the agency?
This is devastating for the staff. Clemenger has form in ensuring any losses are absorbed by its staff … this one will impact the people who did the work the work the work. And definitely not the exec the exec the exec.
An observation; the best work by both agencies was well and truly in the past. Possibly by people who’ve moved on. I get the sense that TBWA is a very different agency to the one led by Scott Whtbin. So it’s difficult to judge what to expect from them now. I hope it’s great.
Yeah I thought the same thing.. have heard so many horror stories from Clems it can’t be the one account that was causing it.
In answer to your question, the NAB churn/burnout stood out like a sore thumb in an agency that was already rife with burnout and high turnover. To be noticeably worse than the rest of Clemenger in the last few years is really quite an achievement.
So, was there other awful things? Yes. Was NAB the biggest meat grinder in the building? Also yes.
I hear that it was a meat grinder for Clems. From nab’s perspective, why was it time to leave?
After 15 years an agency runs out of ideas? Or energy. A client can feel it when an agency doesn’t value the business any more. NABS hasn’t been valued outside of the $ value at Clems for a long time.
Good luck to the production team, you’re going to need it. Ask anyone at EG+