Back from my trip to New York New York!. I had a meeting with a global network agency to kick off a clients' 2010 fee negotiations and also met up with a TV Post Production company.
The scale of the clients spend in the US is absolutely massive - you are talking total COI spend multiplied a few times. I also get the impression (and forgive me if I am wrong) that as a market they are less developed in the way that they deal with procurement. The chaps at the TV Post Production company said that as the scale is so huge the agency heads are calling the shots, and in one agency that could be the Head of Account Management, Head of Creative and Head of TV - three Heads for one account. What chance do Procurement have?
But of course, there is the view of the agency - earlier this month, Ogilvy’s Head of Northern America, John Seifirt, in a memo to staff announcing 90 redundancies blamed client cost-cutting and the role of procurement departments for the structural changes being forced on agencies, including his own. No responsibility back on the agency then to cut their cloth in terms of economic hardship then!
No comments:
Post a Comment