Coke and KFC together

No, not my lunch today !- they are both in this week's Campaign magazine.

Claire Beale has written her perspective on the new remuneration model that Coke are rolling out, as briefly mentioned in a blog posting last year. She feels that it is a real gauntlet for traditional agencies and other advertisers, as it is about rewarding on performance and not on time sheet info (which having had to do one myself we all know is not 100% accurate). Claire feels that it is good to have both the risk and reward element in (good old PBR schemes etc) but feels that there are many wrinkles to sort out first.

Page 17 then has a whole page devoted to it with a number of quotes from 'insiders' - which makes me laugh. At least Coke are getting a lot of press out of this. I do like the different approach and I do encourage agencies that I work with to be creative. Put a safe fee structure on the table but give me something that rewards exceptional performance as well. The main sticking point to the latter is having a brave marketing person to speculate with their marketing budget.

Then on page 19 there is an interview with the KFC Marketing Chief. She says that she keeps procurement at arm's length. She is happy that they negotiate with suppliers such as Pepsi but not her agencies. Every one is different and entitled to their view of course. But saying 'marketing services is my territory' I feel is a bit short sighted as I am sure that her procurement team could really help her in all manner of areas - maybe I should contact them !!

Also there is an interview in Media Week from October 2008 where she was asked "What role does procurement play?". The answer was "In the current economic climate, it plays an increasingly important role in the selection of agencies.".

What changed in a year ?