BBH marches on with Barclays win

Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s seemingly unstoppable march into direct marketing territory continues unabated after it picked up a new chunk of Barclays business to add to its existing advertising account.
The activity, the vast majority of which was previously handled by Rapp, has been handed to the agency without a pitch. Iris, which has worked on Barclaycard since 2009, is also understood to have benefitted from the move. Dare and Maxus work on digital and media.
Barclays is the third major CRM account BBH has picked up, including British Airways, since launching a joint venture with Simon Hall and Warren Moore.
In January, the agency also landed the Tesco CRM and advertising business, although the supermarket giant maintained its long-term DM agency Havas Helia – which has worked for the business for over 20 years – was safe “for the time being”.
Back in the day, BBH had a separate direct marketing agency Limbo – the stamping ground of many of the DM industry’s leading figures, including Mike Cavers, Ben Stephens, and Steve Stretton – but folded the operation into the main agency years ago.
While the link-up with Hall and Moore is still in its early days, both parties have stated they will also be going after other clients and the Barclays’ win is evidence that this is starting to pay dividends.
A Barclays spokesman is quoted as saying: “Like all companies, we review our agencies from time to time and make changes.”