Erste Group to tender creative and media accounts for Austria and CEE

* Combined volume of accounts is around EUR 80m. * CEE-wide implementation in eight countries covering a catchment area of over 120 million people. * Account incumbents Young & Rubicam as well as mediaedge:cia are certain participants in pitch.

Erste Group Bank AG will tender its creative and media accounts again. The last tender for the advertising account was held in 2001.

"We want to bring our advertising image and also our media strategy into line with current developments and exploit synergies in those countries in which we are active in retail banking," said Philip List, Head of Group Marketing of Erste Group. "Furthermore, we hope to new creative ideas a chance by holding the tender and aim to redefine the orientation of our public image and our media strategy."

In a first step, Erste Group will contact potential agencies and invite these to take part in the tender. The account incumbents - Young&Rubicam for the creative account and Mediaedge:cia for the media account - will take part in the tender.

The short list will be selected after a general agency screening by a 12-person jury. As consultant for the support of the entire process, we have won Ernst Scholdan. Members of the jury are the marketing experts of Erste Group, representatives of the Austrian savings banks and several CEOs of CEE subsidiaries. The selection of the agency to be awarded the bid will be reached based on the presentations of the advertising strategies and creative concepts as well as on the proposed media strategies and the derived preliminary media plans.