The Advertising Agency Oligopoly
June 4, 2008
George Parker published this article regarding the fact that Interpublic Group (IPG) has launched a new agency in India christened Pickle.
It’s not that they ‘launched a new agency’ it’s why they did it… and why it’s such a problem in our industry.
“Pickle,” which will function as a full service agency and handle business that conflicts with IPG’s older agency Lowe India. IPG’s other agency in India SSC&B Lintas will be merged with the new outfit. Pickle will now service the former’s existing accounts, besides pitching for new business.
One of his commentators actually put it in the best possible way.
Creating splinter agencies and merging the old to eliminate conflicts of interest is just smoke and mirrors. But as the agency world is basically owned by a handful of companies now, what else can you expect?
That is the root of the problem… so it’s our guess that IPG felt that they can simplistically open another office, call it pickles… and bingo.. all the conflicts are gone… they didn’t even have to bother with that.. they could of just changed phone numbers… That’s what Pepsi fell for when Omnicom had a field day with them.
The sad state of affairs that the Advertising industry is facing is this simple fact, we live in an oligopoly. A half-dozen companies control our entire advertising industry, something to an estimate of 87% of total agency billable hours go though 6 holding companies.
The fact that InterPublic will open up a fake agency, call it pickles and literally just compete with it’s sister firm to give the appearance of being a differing agency is an outrage…
I don’t know what is worse, the fact that Interpublic is doing this.. or that they have idiot clients that will fall for it.
Amazing stuff.
Kansas City Star to outsource all advertising jobs to India
May 20, 2008
Wow— a local paper sending all the jobs to India for their Advertising Services Department… so next time your agency calls in to place an ad for your client… you will be calling into Bangalore, India …
I guess no one in Kansas wants advertising jobs? they couldn’t find enough local talent? This is an outrage… sending all these jobs overseas… the Kansas City Star isn’t some huge multinational… it’s a local company owned by the McClatchy newspaper group. So just to make it clear… these people buy the local paper, put ads in the local paper and hand over locally earned money.. to support families in India rather than locally across the street…
Plenty of Kansas Citians are up in arms over a recent announcement that The Kansas City Star is outsourcing all of the jobs of those who are in the advertising services department - in fact, their entire digital advertising team, according to one blog - to India. The jobs are being outsourced to Infosys Technologies in Bangalore, India. The employees were notified by memo, and the following day The Kansas City Star included a brief in the paper in the business section. The news reported that nine employees were laid off, however in fact there were several more in total. One of the released employees is a very old friend of mine who had been with the company for a number of years.
Now, as if this weren’t enough of a blow, the kicker is this: the employees will retain their employment until after their replacements - who are being flown in, and put up here in Kansas City - have been trained by the displaced employees. And furthermore, according to a blog comment from the best friend of one of those laid off, The Kansas City Star is not giving letters of recommendation to those being let go! Talk about serious insult to injury.
The Kansas City Star should be ashamed of themselves.
TBWA to buy Indian Advertising Agencies
April 2, 2008
TBWA, a leading advertising agency owned by Omnicom, is gearing up to strengthen its presence in India. The agency plans to replicate its success in China by introducing five new disciplines in the country.
The major focus would be on areas such as lead generation, events, promotions, direct marketing, retail channel development and management, activation and audience development.
“We are looking at possible acquisitions for retail activation and event management to start with,”� Keith Smith, president (international), TBWA Group told Business Standard.
Funny, Advertising Agencies are laying off people in the US… but hiring like mad and buying in India and China.
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