Pitch Sisters
Pitch teams from Seismicom and Edelman kept running into each other in client hallways during reviews, so they decided to make it formal. The two agencies — one in promotion, the other in p.r. — cut a deal in December to pitch new business, refer each other and divvy up the revenues that might otherwise have gone to holding-company shops.
Promo shop Eric Mower & Associates outfitted its Fisher-Price pitch team in T-shirts emblazoned with the motto “Plays well with others” to demonstrate its cooperative attitude. The shop has also pitched new business with an event marketing shop, with a licensing firm and with a small interactive shop.
Together, independent agencies with complementary skills can better compete with agency networks that send siblings to pitch together. At the same time, a handful of mid-sized agencies have reorganized their own in-house disciplines to foster better below-the-line integration.
That’s no surprise, given marketers’ migration beyond advertising, with an especially keen interest in retail and relationship marketing. Couple that with more AOR assignments for promo agencies — which come with a seat at the strategy table — and the stakes are high for shops to play nice.
“We wanted Fisher-Price to know we’d be happy as their promo agency, working with their ad agency and not trying to grab business away,” says Virginia Bates, EMA partner and director of promotion planning. Buffalo, NY-based EMA won that 2001 review, and now holds cross-planning meetings with Fisher-Price’s longtime ad shop Young & Rubicam, and the two collaborated on graphics to accompany Fisher-Price’s new tagline “Play. Laugh. Grow.”
EMA has pitched new business with other agencies, too. Pitch partners agree to split whatever business they win, but don’t sign buttoned-up contracts beforehand.
“You trust that you’ll know how to divvy up the business if you win it,” says Doug Bean, EMA’s managing partner-brand promotion group. “To do a tight agreement going into it would run counter to the spirit of working together.”
Seismicom CMO Bill Carmody concurs: “It’s not the knife fight you see between [network siblings] working together. There’s profit for both of us, so no matter who executes the work, we know we’ll both make money.”EMA’s status as AOR often makes it the lead agency on a multi-disciplined campaign. Eastman Kodak Co. put EMA in charge of its holiday 2005 promotion tied to the DVD release of Universal Studios’ Cinderella Man. EMA created the central promotion: Consumers who bought the DVD and spent $199 on Kodak EasyShare Digital products chose four free DVDs from 10 titles from Universal Studios Home Entertainment. An online sweepstakes awarded a grand-prize trip for 12 to Universal Studios; EMA handled the DVD offer and sweeps, as well as print ad and P-O-P support.
Interactive shop Avenue A/Razorfish created a dedicated Web site; Carat Fusion handled online media buys; and Mindshare developed the media plan and handled print buys.
Kodak, like many clients, wants its lead agency to act as an extension of its marketing department and manage relationships with partners (think theme parks and studios), too. “They trust the lead agency to represent their interests well,” says EMA Senior Partner Tom Armentrout.
EMA and Avenue A/Razorfish met through Kodak about five years ago, and now open client doors for each other — and keep each other up to speed on their specialties in a sort of “collaborative brain trust,” Armentrout adds.
Clients tap the brain trust, too: One asked EMA to look over a strategic brief for a media assignment before sending it out, to see how the media plan dovetails with promotion. That trust “goes with the tenure and quality” of a longtime AOR relationship, Bean says.
Edelman and Seismicom won their first joint pitch. New York-based Edelman called Seismicom, San Francisco, for help with a p.r. RFP from The Mushroom Council. Their presentation included channel marketing and foodservice communication; they won the business in January.
Both shops have watched p.r. and promotions — especially retail marketing — overlap. “We found that more programs we were developing clearly had retail possibilities, but our work would be assigned to clients’ AOR or they’d hold simultaneous searches. That’s so inefficient,” says Edelman executive VP-creative director Jody Quinn. So Edelman mulled its options. Building promotions in-house wasn’t feasible, and a lot of potential partners Edelman’s size were part of networks with p.r. siblings, “so that was out,” Quinn says. “It was sort of like Match.com.”
The agencies had been doing occasional plus-ups for each other, but formalized their “rules of engagement” in late 2005 and now recommend each other to current clients and troll for new business together. This month, execs from both agencies tour Edelman’s 12 offices with a Promotions 101 tutorial to show Edelman staffers how to tap Seismicom.
“Top management sees very clearly what each other can do. But as you go through the organizations, it’s not [staffers’] area of expertise, so we’re educating them to better help clients,” Carmody says.
“We needed an independent partner who really knew how to drive revenues for their clients,” he adds. “Ad agency holding companies struggle with their own ROI and territorialism. Our cultures are focused on driving business for clients, not driving numbers for Wall Street. As independents, we have more flexibility to focus on clients.”
When agencies manage their own relationships, they save clients time and headaches.
“It’s better when the client doesn’t have to play traffic cop,” says Larry Deutsch, executive VP-managing director at 141 Worldwide, Chicago. The WPP-owned agency works closely with ad sibling Ogilvy & Mather; that’s where 141’s CEO Rick Roth came from 15 months ago, bridging the agencies for better collaboration.
But 141 works with non-siblings, too. Client Motorola recently wrapped up its NFL season with a roster of agencies at the debriefing: promotion (which handled the MotoZone tour), sports marketing (which handled stadium rights), p.r. and Internet — but not an ad agency. “If we can be this successful without advertising, imagine how well we can do with it,” Deutsch says.
Collaboration lets agencies learn from each other, too. Welch Foods Inc. hosted a four-agency summit in January as part of its fiscal 2007 strategy planning. Each shop gave an overview of trends in its discipline: EMA for promotion, J. Walter Thompson for advertising, Ketchum for p.r., and Maxus Communications for media buying.
“Ketchum had good information on health and nutrition; Maxus talked about TV fragmentation and reaching Hispanics,” Bean says. EMA suggested the four agencies develop a more cohesive approach to point-of-sale marketing. “It’s our turf, but we can’t just think of the retail environment as a promotion responsibility,” Bean says. That prompted some quick brainstorming, right then.
Meanwhile, some indy shops are spinning off or acquiring disciplines for more holistic work. Ryan Partnership spun off its channel marketing division to form Catapult, which opened its doors in October with 10 Ryan clients and $30 million in billings (November PROMO). Catapult pitches integrated marketing, despite its roots in retail; meanwhile, Ryan continues to handle account-specific marketing in its Minneapolis office and its Bentonville, AR office, dubbed Retail Zone.
Client demand prompted the spin-off, as Ryan’s channel marketing group was asked to handle more integrated work, says Peter Cloutier, Catapult president East: “Clients prefer one person sitting at the table; they asked us to simplify the engagement.” One key “engagement manager” brings resources across the agency to the client.
Promo shop EastWest Creative bought ad shop Bezos/Nathanson Marketing Group in October to better handle discipline-neutral marketing work. “This gives us greater ability to provide clients with true idea-based, media-neutral marketing, executable in any forum or format,” says EastWest CEO Chris Bragas.
Agencies big and small continue to shop for specialties to round out below-the-line disciplines. What’s hot now? Retail (still), minority shops, CRM. As long as they play well together.
Independent, Overseas
When Eric Mower & Associates wanted to show its client, FedEx, that it could handle marketing in France, the agency called IN. IN is a global network of local, independent agencies that collaborate on international assignments. The London-based consortium has 75 members in 72 countries, with 3,000 staffers in all. “We convinced FedEx we could dial up a French agency and execute promotions overseas,” says EMA Senior Partner Tom Armentrout. “It’s a terrific way for an independent agency to hold its own against global networks.” Business flows both ways: A U.K. agency referred its client, a biscuit marketer, to EMA to look at expanding its U.S. distribution beyond specialty shops.
