Agency Newsletters

Flash Report @ AgencyFinder - August 14, 2007

CONTENTS:

1. Final Presentations from a Client's Perspective 
2. The 4A's Burtch Drake had Questions; So Do We 
3. Agency New Business Options - The List 
4. A Rose By Any Other Name 
5. Accept No Substitutes 

FINAL PRESENTATIONS FROM A CLIENT'S PERSPECTIVE

We're working on a White Paper to address those infamous "Final Presentations." I invite your input, so to get your juices flowing, let me share some bits from a recent review.

Last Friday final presentations were held for a great "Casino" account. This was our second assignment for the same management company; it's a $4 million account in California. This review included a client RFP that described what contenders were meant to send in response; there was also language to describe what was expected during final presentations. To quote: "Original creative work specific to this project does not need to be included in this submission. The submittal must include samples of past creative work, marketing concepts, or execution from other projects that the agency considers creative or unique." In other words, the client was specifically saying they did NOT want any work or suggestions with respect to the account itself.

For finals, a small handful of agencies (3-4) were selected to present "creative concepts." The RFP also included the following: "The Property has the right to use any or all ideas presented in any reply to this RFP." It also stated that "The Property shall not be responsible for any cost or expense which may be incurred by the respondent in preparing and submitting the proposal called for in this RFP, or any cost or expense incurred by the respondent prior to the execution of a contract agreement."

Some agencies asked about being paid for proposal ownership. The client reiterated that "no spec" was necessary, but each agency was free to do whatever it took to demonstrate their appropriateness and/or uniqueness. There was no agency consensus as to what that fee might be (to pay for ownership), and the client already stipulated no payment would be made. On this and the previous review, the client's interesting position was that it was possible that more than one agency could present identical or at least very similar "suggestions, themes, concepts, strategies, etc." The hiring of one and subsequent use of proposal materials might suggest to the other that their work had been "compromised" when in fact it hadn't. That could lead to time, expense and even potential litigation. That's why the client and their legals included terms for ownership in the RFP. All finalists accepted those terms.