Ikon retains $60m Commbank media account
Ikon has retained the $60m plus media account for the Commonwealth Bank, Mumbrella can reveal.
The agency fought off a field of contenders in the multi-stage pitch which originally included ZenithOptimedia, Carat and even the bank’s creative agency M&C Saatchi before being reduced to a shortlist of incumbent Ikon against OMD and a Mediabrands offering.
“We are thrilled to continue the partnership,” Pat Crowley, account lead on the Commbank account told Mumbrella. “It reinforces that a local agency can deliver for a big iconic brand.”
In the wake of the deal, Ikon denied industry rumours that in order to retain the account they were moving the media buying element of the account to one of their sister WPP agencies, within the GroupM family.
FK YEAH!!!!
Killin’ it Ikon.
Stoked! Couldn’t be happier for the Ikon team!!
Well done Ikon!
Good choice. Ikon FTW.
Good stuff peeps.
Congrats guys, awesome news!!
well deserved, congrats Ikon!
Well done, Ikon!
well deserved Ikon, congrats!
Onya guys, challenging the status quo again!
Congrats IKON and James on retaining this. Great news!
AMAZING NEWS!!! Nice work Ikon!!
Well done on an amazing win! Knock the top off a few!
Woop woop!
Great news for all at Ikon – Congrats to all of you there!!!
Ikon’s gone next level
Great news Ikon!!! Congratulations to all if you!!
Amazing news. Great people, great team.
Ikon is the internet, the internet is Ikon.
any of you other GAGF’s want to come back?
Huge congrats to the whole team!
In my heart I never left, GAGF!
Congrats to Pat and the whole team at Ikon, a well deserved win!
Well done Ikon – well deserved. Congrats to all involved.
a little bit of my faith in the universe just got restored. Incredible achievement to all involved.
well done to Pat and the pitch team. Massive effort.
Good things prevail for good people!! #defyingtheodds #throughthinkandthin #moetorverveicantdecide
Well deserved win Icon. Great team effort.
Mumbrella, would you mind clearing up the comments above?
Cheers,
Everyone except Ikon staff.
I am ikon hear me roar!
Ikon is back baby!!!!
LOLz
Congratulations to everyone at Ikon – esp Pat and Phil.
I guess it’s last chance saloon, a change in management in inevitable regardless of what is a very good win for the team brought in to win the business back.
Looks like a good tactic to fill the feed early with congrats messages… the H8ers typically like to get in early to spew the maximum bile
There is always gotta be a hater. Thanks for fulfilling that role Jason. Congrats to the team at Ikon!
Congrats to Ikon and well deserved, but when are clients going to start compensating agencies when they go back to the incumbent!
Congratulations guys! Not just to Pat and the pitch team but to everyone who works on the business day to day. No doubt your hard work helped to the build a great story for what was ultimately a great pitch.
Well done Pat and the team. And not a peep from you last night. Mark of the man.
Well done Pat, James and the entire Ikonic crew. Very pleased for you all and hope it silences the naysayers forever 🙂
Its amazing. I haven’t seen such jubilance at winning a pitch in some time.
I guess its the difference between someone happy at having a birthday party and someone happy at being cured of cancer. By that I mean that when you are on the brink of disaster and get saved, that sense of jubilance is that much greater.
For those sending me sarcastic emails our website is not down because we thought we were going to lose and go out of business, we are having a new site built.
Well done team, we are back because we are the best This is our year,
The comments above are really quite pathetic and obviously generated by staff at Ikon and Mr Greets.
Why would someone congratulate you anonymously.
Its this kind of silliness that put Ikon in their predicament in the first place.
Go back to basics team Ikon.
So what if ikonoclasts past and present post comments of congratulations and inside jokes. Sorry they didnt die, and that their agency pride is stronger than ever.
There are too many positive comments on this article. It is impossible that so many people have well wishes for Ikon. We must conclude ikon, like the Russian goverment, is trolling this thread to spread their “good will” propaganda.
Fantastic.
Pat & Tim are great partners to work with, we couldn’t be more delighted with this news.
That’s karma I think. The good guys always win in the end. Well done all of IKON
well done Ikon, great result for you
With such self congratulations can someone tell me why most other Ikon clients have left Ikon and why James Greet and the business couldn’t win it on his own without bringing back people who left Ikon for pastures greener in an attempt to win.
Do I read it right that without this Ikon would have been fired like SPC, Diaggio, Think and so many more.
Hater replies welcome but it doesn’t change the facts.
Any agency can buy an account. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that in losing CBA Ikon would have been shut down by STW therefore creating a substantial write down of the STW balance sheet and shareholder distain.
What we want to see is Ikon rebuild not pretend the win means there was no problem to start with.
It’s a bit like Aids. You can use drugs to slow down the illness while in the HIV stage but a cure is needed at some stage.
I wish Ikon well but be realistic if you want to succeed. Yes there are some great people but great leaders are needed to lead great people.
Ikon is a world class brand but yes it has lost its way. This is a turn around year and the bank is the first step in the right direction.
What makes a business collapse? Yes it is fare to say the leadership under estimated the strength of client relationships and also that of key staffers. Hense they are returning.
Historical leadership was strong but also not without issues and in many ways the seeds of failure were sown at this stage. There are good ideas driven leaders and good administrative leaders. When a business is solid and growth is naturally occurring then a administrative leadership is sufficient and in fact more suited to building a sustainable business.
The challenge in Ikon is that an ideas driven leadership were and are needed as problems need to be creatively thought through and resolved – problem solving is the domain of the ideas styled leader. This is absent in Ikon and especially Ikon Sydney today. Mistakes have been made here and these are being rectified- it takes time to find the right person for role like this although there are a number of proven candidates within the ranks.
Likewise STW need to embrace some risk in moving to this leadership model and focus on investment driven growth and not profit only.
At its peak Ikon was, and will be again, a challenger business, a wash with characteristics such as agility, speed, eclecticness, if thats a word, and spirit. This is not present today in ion but this wins resets the foundation for this.
Stage 1. Stabalise: the win does this
Stage 2. Migrate leadership style and capability
Stage 3. Re-estbalish credentials by creating client advocacy.
It will happen.
Comments 1 – 23 are one comment every 3 minutes. Mmmm, smells like fake, looks like fake, must be fake mates
Apologies if I am wrong but this looks like a pathetic attempt at, at Im not sure what actually because it has only served to make ikon look like a very needy pitiful bunch which is not the Ikon I know.
Am confused, does this mean Pat Crowley is taking over from James Greets or is a new agency being set up for CommBank.
If its a new agency, then what is it? If it is CommBank was the Pat setting up his own agency thing all B#llshit?
Is it just me or are the celebrations of a huge pitch win a little like the phrase – in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king.
Beating Carat and Zenith, both on a race to the bottom, is hardly a big victory. I don’t believe Carat Sydney has one a non global piece of business in about 3 years and almost everything in Zenith is up for pitch.
If it were a Group M or OMD or even a smaller business like Razor that would be different.
This story was posted at 11:07am, it was likely the top story on mumbrella at the time, hence the deluge of well wishers in the following hour or so.
And even if you’re right, it’s hardly a severe case of Astro turfing.
I might be barking up the wrong tree here, however will Ikon get involved in any briefs to make it clear to the public that potentially CBA might be one of the funders of the highly controversial Abbot point port on the Great Barrier Reef?
I understand that Citibank have now pulled out. Surely if the American’s are not going to fund the Indians, to help the Aussies potentially kill the reef, then the Aussie Banks won’t go ahead. Or CAN they help kill the reef?
Now that is what you call astro turfing, isn’t it..?
@Simon, as per above article, OMD and Mediabrands were on the shortlist – so Ikon did beat them. As for the rest of the negative comments – grow up! If this is a reflection of our industry then I’m embarrassed to be a part of it. Why shouldn’t Ikon celebrate it’s win? Wouldn’t you?
Ikon did beat Mediabrands and OMD. Carat etc were out first round, old chap. And it was no race to the bottom, that’s for sure
Never mind ganging up on Simon. Directly, or indirectly by working with CBA IKON (STW) might be helping to devastate the reef!
Enough astro turfing yet? It is a little blatant isnt it? Although, we should all be conscious of the ventures we embark on, no?
I wonder if Commbank will still feel good about this decision when the mass exodus of senior minds keep happening to places like Bohemia and others.