Whenever there is a piece of business awarded after a pitch, there are always a number of people who grumble about the unfairness of the process. But it reminds me of the bumper sticker “Only people who are born support abortion”. Likewise, it is never the winners of the pitch who complain about the process.

Last year, quite a few high profile business pitches created industry outrage to the point the AFA is reviewing guidelines for the agency selection process. (Several years ago the Australian Graphic Design Association (AGDA) had their members sign a No-Pitch agreement, but this has not stopped pitches amongst graphic designers). But is the current process broken?

Continue reading "How to stop the bitching about pitching" »

In AdAge today is a report that Leo Burnett has paid the US Government $USD 15.5 million to settle a legal dispute on over billing for the "Army of One" campaign.

While the agency denies any wrong doing, it does not reflect well on the professionalism of the agency or the industry when such high profile occur. But it does make you wonder how many other smaller instances of over-billing occur on a day to day basis without being detected?

TrinityP3 do not undertake financial audits, we leave that work to more qualified accountants like Firm Decisions ASJP and the like.

In our experience performing agency remuneration reviews, over billing is usually caused by misunderstanding of either the terms of the contract, or is because retainers are often negotiated so incredibly lean that the agency is forced to try and recoup revenue through services outside of the retainer such as production and third party services.

There are a number of things a marketer can and should do to insure the agency remuneration is transparent and fair:

Continue reading "Leo Burnett Pay Up to the US Government for Alleged Over Billing" »