CHARLOTTE, NC: Bank of America?s PR duties are being handled by a leadership team pulled out of Ketchum and incorporated into a BoA-dedicated unit referred to as ?Team Omnicom.?
Team Omnicom is independent even to the extent that the agency PR professionals who join the unit will no longer be employees of their agencies. Kim Sample, now a former Ketchum partner, is the PR discipline lead on the account.
Sample said the new unit has been operating for about three weeks. "Currently it's a Ketchum team, but there are non-Ketchum staff being added to it," she said.
The team is responsible for BoA's consumer and sponsorship PR. The ultimate size of the team has not been finalized, Sample said.
Omnicom won BoA's large marketing services account in late August following a three-way competition with WPP and incumbent Interpublic Group. The overall account was estimated to be worth around $60 million, but the size of the PR element was not specified.
At the time the account was won, the holding company said it did not yet know how the PR element would be assigned.
Omnicom pitched for the account with a team of eight agencies of various disciplines.
BoA spokesperson Tara Burke also noted that the bank continues to work with RF Binder, as well as Lopez Negrete for Hispanic PR. The company had been working with RF Binder (part of the Ruder Finn Group) before Omnicom won the account.
