‘No one is picking up the phone’: the cracks in government’s master media agency model
Smaller Victorian Government offices are reportedly having trouble getting someone to answer their calls, amid claims the master media agency’s bandwidth is consumed servicing bigger parts of the account.
One independent media agency executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity to prevent damage to commercial relationships, said their business is servicing three government-linked clients that fall under the state’s Master Agency Media Services (MAMS) contracts.
The state’s current MAMS provider is Omnicom’s agency OMD. However, the executive said independent agencies’ services are often called upon by smaller branches of the government because the official agency of record doesn’t have sufficient capacity.
These contracts, are and have always been, fundamentally flawed and the agencies are to blame. They are high touch, low margin deals, designed to bring a substantial volume of traditional offline media into a business where backroom deals and kickbacks from publishers can be negotiated. Those who suffer are the ones on the frontline.
Mumbrella can edit this under its editorial policy if it wants, however no one who has ever pitched for, worked on or lost a Government contract can deny the above.
To be fair “‘No one is picking up the phone’” could be applied to current state of business throughout the industry.
You get what you pay for. It’s that simple. OMD responded to a MMA brief/ scope of work. Govt accepted the offer and now it appears that the brief may have been wrong. Seems to me Govt need to take ownership of this. Oh, and I take serious issue with the deli analogy. This isnt retail.