CommBank puts creative out for pitch
'Doubt Never Did' from M+C Saatchi for CommBank
The Commonwealth Bank has put its creative account out for pitch, putting its 14-year-old relationship with M+C Saatch to the test.
The bank, which spent $266 million on advertising and marketing last year, is understood to be reviewing its creative capabilities after working with M+C Saatchi since February 2012, with the agency understood to be defending its account.
A Commonwealth Bank spokesperson said in a statement: “Like many large organisations, we regularly review our supplier partnerships as the needs of the business evolve. We are currently considering a range of partnerships.”
The pitch comes less than a year after M+C Saatchi created CommBank’s first-ever campaign built specifically for broadcast video on demand (BVOD), “Doubt Never Did”, which was described at the time as a “very fresh, very different” take on an otherwise typical finance category.
The campaign was also positioned as an “Australian-first” media strategy, leveraging a 48-hour roadblock across BVOD under the media direction of Essence Mediacom.
If lost, the account would represent another blow to M+C Saatchi Australia, following its loss of its eight-year-old account with Optus to Accenture Song last year and its more recent decision not to participate in the pitch for Australian Retirement Trust. In 2024, it lost Tourism Australia, also to Accenture Song.
The new pitch also comes amid broader turbulence across the M+C Saatchi network globally. M+C Saatchi Group CEO Zaid Al-Qassab has left the advertising group “by mutual consent” after just two years in the role.
The company has now forecast a 7% decline in revenue for calendar year 2026, with much of the weakness attributed to performance in its Australian operations.
However, the agency remains the creative agency of record for Woolworths, releasing the supermarket’s “Summer of Cricket” at the end of last year, featuring Alex Carey as its cricket ambassador.
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