Advertising, ad campaigns, ad agencies, and the people that make it happen

My spies in New York tell me that Ogilvy & Mather spent more than $12 million dollars on their recent unsuccessful pitch for the Wall-Mart business. And that now, they are in the process of laying people off. Why am I not surprised to hear this? Because it’s the classic BDA (Big Dumb Agency) approach to the ad biz. Agreed, this was one of the biggest accounts up for grabs this year, with billings in excess of $600 million. But consider that it was for an account which has historically done incredibly moronic advertising, that is a penny pincher when it comes to paying vendors, that caters to a market who’s “hot button” is how much light beer and cardboard pizza can they get for under ten dollars to enjoy while watching “SmackDown 2007” on the plasma TV that fills one wall of the trailer. And what you have here is an account that no one in their right mind would want to service. But hey, $600 million is $600 million, even if the ROI on running the account will be considerably south of one percent. But, as I have written about on previous occasions, even if you get the account after spending $12 million, it will take you two years just to recover the cost of the pitch. By which time, Wall-Mart  will probably have put the account in review… Again!

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