Belgian ad agencies begin virtual strike against pitching process
Belgian ad agencies begin virtual strike against pitching processThe advertising agencies of Belgium have launched a virtual strike in a bid to change the number of agencies being asked to pitch.
The week-long virtual strike is being held by advertising agencies such as McCann Lowe, Kunstmaan, VVL BBDO, Saatchi, Punta Linea, VVL and Famous, which have closed their sites to host an open letter to clients which runs across the front page of each of their websites, from one agency to the next.
The virtual strike has taken place to highlight that the agencies want clients to agree and abide by a rule that no more than three agencies should be invited to pitch for single piece of business.
The charter is found at the end of the online trail which explains that, together with the association of advertisers UBA, the ACC have signed a Code of Conduct in case of a competition. It is a joint guidance note for advertisers and agencies describing the best practice in the management of the pitching process.
The results will be interesting for the rest of the international industry to see.
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Once again you chumps can't even get the headline right.
Chumps... ha.
Great writing.
The website was very good also.
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Fair play to them. 3 agencies per pitch is plenty, any more is just a sign of a lazy client failing to do their homework.
Brilliant.
Drum - please could you email this to your Public Sector database, The Scottish Government, and John Swinney's at John.Swinney.msp@scottish.parliament.uk
I hope you do.
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Like it a lot.
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The public sector has a duty to be inclusive so it perhaps it isn't the biggest problem. Is it?
The problem is surely in the private sector's smaller clients persist on calling in as many agencies as they can instead of carrying out research on their own as to which agencies are most suitable to meet their brief.
Fantastic unity from the Belgian agencies. But will it do enough to convince clients that their pitch process is flawed?
It gets it out there and it'll get them thinking. And they'll be thinking, 'I'll just fire over to Holland and get some cloggies to do it instead.'
Stephen,
Don't have a problem with private sector clients speaking to all and sundry - we ask how many are on the list, and if we don't like it, we walk away.
The worst abuse of the industry comes from public sector 'frameworks', where companies try very hard to gain 'approved supplier' status, and then find that because the administrators in Scotland are (a) too weak to stand up to Brussels, and (b) often uninformed about the way creative industries work, we are being asked to compete time and time again with up to 10 competitors for tiny contracts.
The Belgians make a point about how pitches use up 'energy'. There was a time when Scottish creative companies had a genuine appetite for public sector work. That is far from the case now.
If we weren't in the middle of a recession, I'm sure there would be plenty of companies out there telling the public sector to stick their briefs where the sun don't shine.
It might yet happen.
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Wise Words Lepitak
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Yes, I know of a few companies which have spent a lot of time and effort to get appointed to public sector frameworks and have now decided that it hasn't been worth the effort and stopped chasing business due to the small budgets and the time and effort expected for them.
I think there are a lot of elements to this problem - yes, clients need to cut down on the numbers being asked to pitch, but they also have the problem of differentiating agencies. There's so many that say they do the same things. The UK market is over serviced at the moment. So while clients can and do ask for more agencies than they maybe need to...they may also feel that they need to due to the volume of suppliers out there.
Do think this is a brilliant move by the Belgian agencies bur I'm just not sure how much it will achieve.
Fantastic unity. I applaud their stance on stamping on this ridiculous way of doing business.
We were once asked to pitch for a double sided A4 leaflet. along with 15 other agencies.
Oh, how we laughed.
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Yes, I know of a few companies which have spent a lot of time and effort to get appointed to public sector frameworks and have now decided that it hasn't been worth the effort and stopped chasing business due to the small budgets and the time and effort expected for them.
I think there are a lot of elements to this problem - yes, clients need to cut down on the numbers being asked to pitch, but they also have the problem of differentiating agencies. There's so many that say they do the same things. The UK market is over serviced at the moment. So while clients can and do ask for more agencies than they maybe need to...they may also feel that they need to due to the volume of suppliers out there.
Do think this is a brilliant move by the Belgian agencies bur I'm just not sure how much it will achieve.
They might want to concentrate on winning the pitches rater than bitching about the process. Who cares who you're up against in a pitch, have a bit of confidence in your ability?
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I'm having flashbacks to a certain financial services brand who invited ten of us to pitch for that year's Christmas card.
They even asked for 2-3 pages on strategy.
(1) It's Christmas.
(2) Not Easter.
(3) Let's celebrate it.
(4) Erm, that's it.
Needless to say, we went for it.
From memory I think we came seventh...
Anyone know who won? I'm still not over it.
It was me - I work from my bedroom hence have no overheads and beat you all on price.
Anonymous Wed 10 Feb 2010 16:05
Well said that man!..../woman.
Enough of this Scottish Government hiding behind bureaucracy to cover up incompetence!
Couldn't you have got your post grammatically correct? Learn how to spell words before you use them. I won't even mention the syntax in the first overly long sentence.
'gramatically'(sic) in a post that chides others for not proofreading their posts. Ye just couldnae make it up.
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I think it's an excellent idea - as someone else said, it ought to be pretty easy to narrow it down to 3 agencies judging them by past work and creds. Don’t think it will work though - as soon as someone breaks ranks it's dead in the water. And unfortunately, someone smaller, who can't afford not to, will.
I do wish they’d used proper apostrophes though.
Who is this fascinating 'Lil Ericus' character?
Please - identify yourself - where do you work? Why so upset? maybe we can help...
The question is, why do we pitch at all?
Nothing is learned from a pitch that can't be learned quicker and more completely from getting to know an agency and it's people in the first place.
So, rather than waste your own man-hours sitting through round upon round of presentations from a whole gaggle of agencies you know nothing about, why not spend the time getting to know three of them really well.
They'll show you case studies of how they've tackled problems similar to yours and they'll even tell you their billing structure so you'll have a pretty good idea of how much it'll all costs.
Then use your skill and judgement as a business professional to choose the one you'd like to work with the most. Employ them. And brief them.
I would also like to see an end to social inequality, famine and war.
Thank you.
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Lil Ericus is surely Rob Morrice in disguise. The laughably bad grammar, spelling and punctuation in his Lynne Trussesque chunter is just too bad to be true.
Expose thine-self Prince Machiavelli!
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