Earlier last year Bank of America (BoA) was doing an agency search. What made this search perhaps a little different from most is that they only interviewed holding companies (i.e. WPP, IPG, Publicis, Omnicon). The later won the multi-hundred million account. The argument for interviewing only holding companies was that the client could have all of it’s marketing communication needs taken care of by one central group since a holding company would have all of the various different disciplines from direct, to interactive to b-to-b and consumer advertising covered. What most people don’t realize is how much of the work gets outsourced to small creative hot-shops that are not part of the network. In the end all the holding company cares about is keeping the client satisfied which is understandable. But it makes me question the logic behind BoA’s decision and that of other larger companies to only interview holding companies especially when so many new creative boutiques are popping up that are being lead by the once iconic creative executives who left these giants. This will be a topic I’ll address more in a future Perspectives.
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February 13th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Think of all of those people at the agency that will suddenly need to become clients of BoA. Its 2-way street.
nice logo.