Road safety body TAC to tender ad account held by Grey Group for more than two decades
Simon Strahan
One of the longest standing agency-client relationships in Australia is to be tested, with Victoria’s Transport Accident Commission calling an advertising pitch for the account held by Grey Group for the last 24 years.
The tender process launched today. It follows the arrival of new marketing boss Simon Strachan, who was named senior manager of marketing in April, following the departure of John Thompson in November after eight and a half years in the role.
Thompson was known for driving hard-hitting campaigns as has been the TAC’s style over the last 25 years through a long relationship with Grey Group, appointed to the account in 1989. TAC’s first ad aired on December 10, 1989.
Grey is also credited with the campaigns such as the emotional Mother’s Day print and radio campaign in May, since Strahan stepped into the lead marketing role.
While Grey Group declined to comment in detail, the agency indicated it would be defending the account, as it has with statutory reviews every three or four years as part of the government process.
Strahan said inviting advertising agencies to pitch will provide the TAC with “an opportunity to ensure that the most creative thinking and strategic insight is utilised in the creation of TAC campaigns”.
“This is an opportunity for agencies to enter into a competitive pitch for the TAC advertising and marketing campaign business,” Strahan said in today’s announcement.
“We have commenced a formal and rigorous process that includes Expression of Interest and Request for Tender stages which we expect to complete towards the end of the year.
“In the interest of fairness and maintaining a high standard of integrity to the process, myself and other TAC staff will not be commenting until the review is complete.”
Strahan said the process will be subject to the “highest levels of governance and oversight” and Pitcher Partners will act as probity advisers to oversee the process.
TAC Mother’s Day print ad by Grey Group
Why? Why? Why?
For gods sake. Why does every new marketing boss decide to pitch the business.
A suggested answer:
1. They realise the ‘reduce marketing spend kpi’ is easy to hit by taking the cowards route – allow a third party to negotiate, avoid hard discussions with the existing relationship.
2. It allows a line in the sand to be drawn between the work produced by the marketers. Any claim of ‘legacy’ is easily put to bed.
3. Failure can be attributed to the new agency, rather than be left in stark contrast to the ongoing success able to be achieved through the previous marketers relationship and somehow not his own.
4. Stamp of authority…”I have the power”
And that’s just to give a few reasons. Of course, the agency could be performing poorly…
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Hi Bob,
And don’t forget that where the client is government-based, they do have to review regardless.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Tim,
Of course they must review, but this sounds like a full-blown competitive pitch – something entirely different.
When the last review was completed there should have been KPIs set down perhaps including road toll figures, road injury figures, agency evaluation measures etc.
A statutory review should be a rigorous process but needn’t be ego-driven (correctly described by bob). The agency should have been preparing for it every day since the last one.
It should be required that any marketing head justify to their CEO or Board, before they call a competitive pitch, that they’ve gone through a full and rigorous review process first.
A competitive pitch, especially for a client as high-profile as TAC, will be a huge, wasteful and expensive exercise for everyone. Completely so for non-winners but only slightly less so for the final appointee.
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Don’t write Grey off, they know the business and have done a great job over the years.
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