Diageo suitors await result of final pitches

What is happening with the Diageo pitch? With £15 million (€19.05 million) of media buying business up for grabs, it is not surprising that the company is making the agencies involved sweat a bit.

Diageo was formed by the merger of Guinness and Grand Metropolitan and the account, which will service £10 million of Guinness brands and £5 million of Grand Met's brands is the biggest media account in the State.

However, all involved felt they would know by now. After a month of pitching, two agencies - AIM/Carat and Initiative Media - made it to the last round and their final pitches took place early last week. At that time, the agencies felt they would hear certainly by mid-week at the latest.

The wait is seen as the most nerve-wracking for AIM/Carat, which already has £10 million of Diageo business.

It is significant in terms of how the industry is going that the two agencies which made it to the final round are specialist media agencies - solely buying advertising space.

The mood in advertising generally has turned against grand-scale pitches with agencies increasingly feeling that they are too expensive, too labour intensive and too unpredictable. Given the stress and expense of the Diageo pitch, it wouldn't be unreasonable if media shops became as wary of the pitching process.