Ark Advisors, LLC have been hired to get Cadillac a new advertising agency after the firing of Modernista …. and evidently more than a handful of Advertising Agencies are lining up to kiss some ass. A few years ago we ran a story regarding how Pile and Company can make or break your advertising agency. Ark Advisors does a similar job. They fish around for the “right ad agency” for the client.
Criticized often, and muted just as often. These “Agency locater services” are perhaps the most powerful force in the sales process. CMO’s hire them out to cover their ass when the relationship goes south
That way the CMO can always say “We selected them based on the Agency locater service”. They also hire them to cover up any outward look of bias, as many CMO’s started at out at the awarded agency or at minimum have friends there. Remember it may appear that hundreds of thousands of people work at thousands of advertising agencies, in fact there are only really 5 or so holding companies that control 90% of the advertising. Basically these 5 firms virtually control the industry. It’s one of the main reasons why advertising is so stale as of recent. It’s also why these agencies are slow to adopt anything new.
Ad Agencies ass kiss firms like Ark Advisors and Pile and Company so they get on the preferred list (something the services deny exist, but yet they appear to award the contracts over and over again to a small list of agencies, despite thousands of independent ad agencies that exist — many of them very good).
So there you have it people… the ass kissing has begun, and the one that shoves their nose the furthest will win the Cadillac account.
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Just an anecdote about one of these so called advisers.Years ago, in another agency, we got on the radar of this very famous agency consultant, but never got in any pitch. The kept reminding us to pay a “small” yearly fee to be included in their small agency DB. The moment we paid the fee, we started getting into more and more pitches and winning some accounts (not big), but nice enough to make some money.So yes, favoritism exists. It all depends how much the ad agency pays these guys.
Written like an author who has read about the practice but in truth, doesn't really know what it is.
If I worked for Deutsch I would say the samething.
Ok Mike, so let's look at it this way… how do they create these lists? Why are many perfectly suited agencies not on the list.. or not even being looked at? Why are 90% of the “agency finder” recommend agencies belong to holding companies, when a perfect viable… perhaps superior agency is passed over when they don't belong to one?
That's why I was bummed that they dropped Modernsita!. Those guys are part of the 10% of ad agencies that are still independent and haven't been assimilated into the control of the 5 families secret advertising mafia. Once again, the independents get kicked in the crotch for having the sack to try and go it alone. Watch GM hand the account to one of the big 5. Probably a company headquartered in France.
I know it's going to one of the big 5 … because someone at Cadillac really believes that you can't get fired for hiring IBM …. even if it costs 10x as much and preforms 80% worse.