Agency Newsletters

Flash Report - October 27, 2004

This BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT information is for agencyfinder.com Certified Agencies, Agency New Business Executives and agency subscribers.

CONTENTS:

1. Agency Opinions on the Infamous RFP -
    Few Surprises
2. Clients Share Their Innermost Secrets 
3. Pardon the Outspoken Plug!

AGENCY OPINIONS ON THE INFAMOUS RFP - FEW SURPRISES

In late September, one of the nations largest foundations turned to us to conduct research to learn how their communications staff and some of their largest grantees (nonprofit organizations) could improve and create standards or alternatives for the RFP process. The foundation and its grantees hire ad agencies, public relations firms, research/polling companies and media buyers to help them create and implement communications campaigns around issues the foundation supports. We polled our agency registrants for their input.

Within the next few weeks, we'll be sharing those results, but there were few surprises. In

Question # 1 (of 23 multiple-choice questions), given 11 options ranging from "clear" to "confusing", the majority responded that RFP's were "not well thought out", and "asked for wrong information." In later questions, respondents remarked the RFP was merely a formality; that the preferred candidate was already identified.

One respondent's comments reflected many: "Most RFP's seem to be constructed by people who have little idea about the marketing process, their real goals and objectives, and what they need to convey to get back meaningful responses... Also, they ask for sooo much detail that it can't possibly be meaningful. They need consultants (intermediaries) in the search process and trust them to do their job ... never thought I'd be saying this!"

More details to come...

CLIENTS SHARE THEIR INNERMOST SECRETS

We've been helping clients manage their searches for so long (beginning 1997) that we tend to forget that our registered agencies, particularly when they receive an invitation to compete, don't always understand the extent to which we converse with our advertising or public relations clients (those conducting the search).