EHS Brann and WWAV to share £30m Barclays direct business

Barclays has split its &£30m direct marketing account between incumbent EHS Brann and WWAV Rapp Collins.

The bank has also appointed Vital and Fox Murphy to what it describes as a “support roster”.

Barclays brought to an end months of speculation when it called a below-the-line review at the end of May. It initially drew up a longlist of 20 agencies, before shortlisting EHS Brann, WWAV, Proximity London and The Marketing Store to pitch for the main business.

It emerged last week that agencies Proximity and The Marketing Store had been knocked out of the contest.

The review was overseen by Barclays director of marketing services Peter Duffy, who says: “We’re almost a year into our new visual identity and tone of voice, but in order to make a further step-change, a review of our agency partners was well overdue.”

Barclays says that EHS Brann will take the lead on strategy and planning but it is not yet clear what WWAV’s role will be.

Rumours of a direct marketing pitch surfaced in March following the bank’s appointment of Walker Media to handle its &£40m media planning and buying business.

In June, Barclays appointed Dialogue Marketing Group, which is part of WPP’s Ogilvy Group, to its roster to handle the Wealth Management unit (MW June 1).

Dialogue, which specialises in direct marketing and sales promotion, is working with the Barclays division on all of its advertising, marketing and customer relationship management programmes. Barclays Wealth Management had no retained agency following a series of structural and management changes.