AdWeek has an interesting article on their site today that delves behind the scenes of the pitch process a bit.  It’s a little long, but well worth the read if you’re playing the Monday morning blues.

It’s also an excellent demonstration of Goodby living up to its "agency of the year" title.   In the last few weeks, Goodby has apparently passed up the opportunity to pitch Jeep in favor of taking at stab at Volvo, a pitch that they entered in the final stages after "losing" Saturn.  Then, only two weeks into that process, Goodby pulled out, presumably to set their sights on Hyundai, an account that boasts billings about three times larger than Volvo.

While every agency would probably love to have the clout that allows them to enter and leave huge pitches willy-nilly (Goodby is also pitching Sprint, which means they’ve dabbled in the three biggest pitches currently listed on AdWeek), it also begs the question of relationships.  Are they shooting themselves in the foot by coming off as a wishy-washy agency who’s going to drop the little guy in favor of a bigger fish every time the opportunity comes up?

And what about holding companies?  AdWeek’s article does a little digging on those as well, bringing to light the fact that Jeep and Hyundai have predominantly stuck with Omnicom shops, while Volvo avoids WPP based agencies.

The long and short of it?  Politics and money still play huge roles in the so-called "creative review" process. 

Filed under: Uncategorized