When account conflict still seems to rule agency land, who needs a pitch intermediary? Barclays has just revealed the shortlist for its creative account, set to leave BBH which may be bound for Publicis Groupe’s recent Santander global win. The Barclays review is being handled by AAR.
Shortlisted are Grey, M&C Saatchi, TBWA and VCCP. Which is pretty much all that was left: Publicis agencies are out of the equation (as above), the other two big holding companies are represented with Grey/WPP and TBWA/Omnicom (IPG is being bought by Omnicom) while M&C and VCCP are pretty big independents.
Mother wasn’t available (it’s just won Nationwide), Barclays may have preferred Ogilvy to Grey but Ogilvy, having bought New Commercial Arts had to resign Nationwide because it handles more lucrative Lloyds CRM work, Havas-owned Uncommon doesn’t have the greatest record in hanging on to big accounts – Barclays was with BBH for 20 years. Adam&eveDDB handles Lloyds above the line work.
The list kind of writes itself. Intermediaries doubtless do more than write the names of available agencies on the back of a fag packet but that’s still a big part of the operation. The other stuff they do, like charging agencies for pitching, sometimes (allegedly) taking a cut of the successful agency’s fee, is rather more smoky. A lot seems to come under that handy catch-all phrase “consultancy.” To be fair the AAR (originally the Advertising Agency Register, a showcase for agencies) is an experienced players that distanced itself from such practices in a recent article in Campaign.
