Government accounts are sought after because budgets are good but the feeding frenzy at tender stage is not so attractive to agencies
The Crisis Pregnancy Agency has begun a trawl to find an advertising agency. The State funded agency has an advertising budget of €500,000 for what remains of 2002 and this will be its first advertising campaign since it was formed just over a year ago.
The budget will prove attractive to agencies as will the brief which is to devise a national public awareness campaign for crises pregnancy and crises pregnancy prevention.
However the method of agency selection will again put the spotlight on what is now perceived within the advertising industry as a time consuming and expensive tendering system.
Government accounts are much sought after by agencies because budgets tend to be good and bills are paid on time.
What is proving less attractive to agencies is the feeding frenzy at tender stage.
Currently any agency both here and in the rest of Europe can pitch in for government tenders. This has led to Government bodies such as FÁS receiving as many as 26 expressions of interest from advertising agencies in response to a tender notice. This contrasts sharply with the private sector where typically only a handful of agencies would be approached and asked to pitch for an advertising account.
A typical example would be First Active which late last month invited five agencies to pitch for its business and this week awarded the account to Chemistry.
"We've put together a working group to see if there is a better way of approaching pitching for government accounts," says Philip Sherwood, the recently elected president of the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI).
"The present system has really got out of hand. It's very expensive for agencies in terms of manpower and in producing creative presentations."
IAPI is looking at ways of working within EU procurement regulations to set out more defined procedures for agency tendering. "For example it's ludicrous that a two man agency can currently pitch for €2 million worth of business when in reality they couldn't handle it," he says "That sort of thing just wastes everybody's time."
IAPI is currently working on devising procedures whereby initial criteria such as agency size and track record would reduce the numbers replying to tender notices and after that only a short list of up to 10 agencies would be invited to make written submissions.
Only three agencies would then be asked to present creative and strategic proposals.
It is not just agencies that are unhappy with the current system. For its current Nice advertising campaign and for the advertising for the abortion referendum, the Referendum Commission sidestepped the open system saying that it was too time consuming and instead invited three agencies to pitch.
Meanwhile, Crisis Pregnancy Agency chairwoman Ms Olive Braiden can expect somewhere between 20 and 30 expressions of interest from advertising agencies landing on her desk on October 31st, the tender closing date. She will then begin the lengthy process of sorting through the submissions before forming a short list. Given this time frame it is likely that the Agency will not be able to start spending its 2002 advertising budget until December.
The shortlist for Marketeer of the Year 2002 has been announced. The six candidates for the respected award includes Brian Gould, BMR Slendertone, Paul Fitzsimmons, Today FM, Donal Kavanagh, Zed Candy, Padraig O'Ceidigh, Aer Arann Express, Michael Dwyer, Pigsback.com and Paddy Power, Paddy Power bookmakers. The award will be announced on November 7th.
Heatley Tector Limited (HTL) the Dalkey based company that provides instore music for shops and supermarkets as well as hotels and hairdressers has formed a strategic alliance with Mood Media, a European wide "sound marketing" company.
A four-year buyout all cash deal worth up to €4.5 million will increase Mood Media's shareholding in HTL from 20 per cent in two years to full ownership after four years. HTL has a turnover of €2 million.
