Barclaycard has appointed iris to take on the role of its lead direct marketing agency and help reinforce the company’s position as the leading payment provider in the UK.

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 Millner, 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.”