Kasikorn, formerly the Thai Farmers' Bank, has tasked the agency to provide corporate communications and CRM support for its corporate banking division, said 124 president Nimitz Modrakee. The brief also includes some event management, he said.
"They have a strong internal team - they are hiring us because they want added value, connections and marketing knowledge to enhance their work," he said.
PR will target the entire breadth of corporations, from SMEs on.
The appointment comes at a time when interest rates are below one per cent and competition among commercial banks to lure clients is getting tougher by the day.
"We will need to come up with more and more creative solutions," Nimitz said.
The assignment from the Islamic Bank of Thailand is mainly to help build awareness of the bank in the country, Nimitz said. The job will include media relations, corporate communications and marketing communications.
The bank opened its first branch in June, and Nimitz said 124 had sent an account director to be based at the Islamic bank, as it does not have a PR person yet.
The bank will provide financial services for customers who accept the procedures of the Islamic way of banking, which means that no interest will be charged nor given. Nimitz said: "Many Muslims can't go to traditional banks, so they keep their money at home. This bank will be good for the country in that (these individuals) can come out, use the bank and invest."
He expects the majority of the bank's clients to be Muslim - but while most PR efforts will be targeted at this community, a limited number of activities, will go beyond to the general public.
Nimirz said he believed the main target group to be relatively easy to reach "because the community is small - just five per cent of the population - and very united."
124 plans to use the Muslim mass media as well as direct mail to reach its target audience and to increase awareness of the bank.
The Islamic bank of Thailand hopes to have six branches up and running by the end of the year. It is targeting 2.5 billion baht (US$59.5 million) in loans and 2.87 billion baht in deposits this year.