The appointment of one of the UK's top brand consultancies, said to have been made directly by chief executive Luqman Arnold, coincides with a management shake-up that sees top marketer Janet Connor, moved across to a role in a new customer sales division.
Abbey National's loss of £984m for the past financial year was one of the biggest in UK banking history. It prompted speculation that the company will be forced into making significant numbers of its staff redundant. In September it announced 3000 job cuts.
Arnold used the results announcement to set out a three-year plan that involves targeting its 16 million customers more effectively with financial services.
A company spokeswoman confirmed: "With our strategy and structure announced last week, there is a huge amount of work needed and Wolff Olins is helping with various aspects of this strategy."
The restructure will see Connor reporting to Mark Pain, previously the managing director of wholesale banking, who now heads the customer sales function. The spokeswoman said Connor's exact role within the structure had yet to be clarified.
The decision also means that Abbey National is looking externally for a senior marketer to head another function, provisionally labelled customer propositions, which will oversee the bank's principal marketing communications.
Connor joined the bank from Sainsbury's in 1990, and has held a number of roles, including the post of retail marketing director since May 2001.
Later that year, she oversaw a review of the bank's £22m consumer advertising business, which ended with her reappointing Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper. She also spearheaded the strategy to open branches in Homebase and Safeway stores.
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