WPP is out, Publicis is in after Suncorp completed a review of its creative and production partners in a move Suncorp CMO Mim Haysom said was about being “future fit” for AI and emerging creative technologies. 

A four-way pitch, understood to have been ongoing for several months, saw Leo Burnett run up against WPP and independent firms BMF and The Hallway for a consolidated creative remit across the insurance business. 

Effective from January, Leo Burnett will take on all nine Suncorp insurance brands – including AAMI and GIO – and Publicis’ units PXP and Prodigious will manage centralised creative production. ANZ Bank also appointed Leo Burnett as its creative agency earlier this year. WPP is hardest hit, having worked on the Suncorp business for more than 20 years via Ogilvy and more recently through production unit Hogarth. Tension between Hogarth and WPP's creative agencies is understood to be an ongoing challenge.  

Haysom thanked Ogilvy and the broader WPP team for their long-standing work on the business. "Together we have developed iconic cultural moments and many award-winning customer campaigns," she said.

Haysom told Mi3 Suncorp’s strategic decision to divest its banking unit and focus on the insurance sector triggered the creative overhaul, with one core focus on AI and creative tech to position the business for what industry more broadly expects to be an upending of much of today’s creative process and development.

Canva’s $370m acquisition of Australian AI creative start-up Leonardo.ai and its move into enterprise solutions is one of the earliest signals of what is to come. Creative tech start-ups are also on the radar of venture capital firms – the former US investment banker and early adtech sector investor, Luma Partners Terry Kawaja, predicts a boom in creative tech start-ups similar to the emergence of adtech players 15 years ago. 

“We're going see a new rise of what I'm calling creative tech,” Kawaja told Mi3 last month – he invented the Lumascape spaghetti maps of the adtech ecosystem. “Not just dynamic creative optimisation ... I'm talking about new tools that are applying data to not marginally improve the efficiency of ad spend but to actually address the effectiveness of the ads, which is primarily the creative.”

Haysom said there was a “lot of opportunity” in emerging tech and AI. “It’s why we want to set ourselves up for that progression – it was a big part of the brief," she said. 

Haysom's remit at Suncorp has also broadened substantially - her brand and advertising role has expanded to include the insurer's entire customer experience agenda and more recently corporate communications.  

“Following this change our objective remains to deliver industry-leading brand and creative solutions, across our diverse portfolio, to best serve our customers. We are excited and look forward to working with the Publicis Groupe to deliver on this goal,” Haysom said.  

ANZ CEO of the French-owned Publicis, Mike Rebelo, said it was an "inspiration to be a part of the marketing transformation agenda and creative ambition of Mim and the Suncorp team.

“To be expanding our partnership with the rest of their iconic brands is a huge testament to the Leo Burnett team. We look forward to unleashing our production platform PXP and a range of our Publicis Groupe capabilities to support this next phase of their growth."

It’s the second major win under Leo Burnett’s new CEO Clare Pickens since she started with the French Holdco in April– the news it comes less than a month after the creative agency picked up ANZ Bank from Special Group. 

 “It is an honour to strengthen our partnership with Suncorp across their portfolio of industry-leading brands," said Pickens. "Over the past seven years, we have built a strong, collaborative relationship based on a deep understanding of the Suncorp business and a shared commitment to delivering impactful work. The expansion of our remit marks an exciting new chapter, as we focus on continuing to elevate their brands and driving meaningful business growth together."