The win follows a competitive pitch process and extensive agency market review lead by Gary Twelvetree and Katherine Whitton in which Iris performed outstandingly.
Priorities for the new direct marketing agency will be to focus on delivering innovative and compelling engagement models that will complement existing and planned activity across all communication channels. The agency will work across both the commercial and consumer businesses of Barclaycard and alongside the Barclaycard core agency team of BBH, Walker Media and Dare. Vital will continue with its role on the agency roster.
Katherine Whitton, Marketing Director, BCUK, said: “Iris showed great understanding of what we are looking to achieve in this market, as a leading payment provider, and the exciting challenges ahead. In return they have shared with us some compelling insights into their area of expertise and extremely powerful creative solutions which will help drive our innovation programme. We look forward to launching these new solutions in the future.”
Ian Milner, Chief Executive, Iris said: “We are thrilled to be partnering with Barclaycard on its journey as industry leader. This is an exciting time for the payments market and we are looking forward to developing communications channels that really work in communicating just that.”
Barclaycard, part of Barclays Global and Retail Banking division, is a leading global payment business which understands the needs of both purchasers and sellers. It enables retailers and merchants to accept cards, helps customers make payments through card, contactless and mobile applications as well as extending credit to consumers. The company is one of the pioneers of new forms of payments and is at the forefront of developing viable contactless and mobile payment schemes for today and cutting edge forms of payment for the future. It also issues credit and charge cards to corporate customers and the UK Government. Barclaycard partners with a wide range of organisations across the globe to offer their customers or members payment options and credit. In addition to the UK, Barclaycard operates in the United States, Europe and Africa.
Key facts published in August 2010;
- number of UK customers: 11.1m
- number of International customers: 10.5m
- number of retailer/merchant relationships: 85,000.