A spoonful of sugar
I got annoyed this morning while burning of 700 calories on a stepping machine. Was nothing to do with the seeming futility of it all when you realize a Heineken contains 166 calories and I'd consumed considerably more than 700 calories worth the previous night.
No, I became annoyed with the PR new business process in North Asia. While the following contains several gross generalizations, the pattern I've experienced looks a little like this:
1. Email or phone call from company wanting creds meeting in the next 24 hours
2. One hour meeting with PR or Marketing Manager featuring dueling PowerPoint presentations (but seldom a formal RFP document)
3. Agency told to revert with a proposal within the next seven days
4. Budget question answered with inevitable "You tell us what you think it will cost"
5. Agency works like the dickens to revert with proposal (frequently again PowerPoint sent via email as executives are 'too busy' to see another presentation)
6. Agency waits anxiously by the email
7. Winning agency notified. Others wait...and wait
While this doesn't happen all of the time, it does happen often enough to raise some pretty serious questions. Questions like why are decisions to review agencies seemingly made on a whim? And why are formal RFP processes going the way of the dodo? If you can't brief at this level, then how on earth do you expect a considered and strategic response? And why do companies seem not to have budgets in place and force the ridiculous guessing game? Surely budgets are set? And how can a decision of this magnitude be made via email? For the PR agency to genuinely become "extensions of your team" then you really should meet the people who'll be doing the work.
The biggest question, though, is one of simple business courtesy.
Why, for goodness sake, considering the effort and time that agencies put into responding, do they seldom, if ever, get a call or email letting them know if the fruits of their considerable labours have been successful? OK, we don't expect to win all of the time and realize competitive tenders are, well, competitive. But is it too much to ask for a discussion on where we went wrong (be it cultural fit, understanding of the brief, team make up, proposed fee...)?
While I feel the day won't come in my career when PR agencies receive fees to tender for work a la our cousins in advertising, I certainly hope I'll see a day when this pattern I've outlined becomes the exception and not the rule.
- Jeremy
No, I became annoyed with the PR new business process in North Asia. While the following contains several gross generalizations, the pattern I've experienced looks a little like this:
1. Email or phone call from company wanting creds meeting in the next 24 hours
2. One hour meeting with PR or Marketing Manager featuring dueling PowerPoint presentations (but seldom a formal RFP document)
3. Agency told to revert with a proposal within the next seven days
4. Budget question answered with inevitable "You tell us what you think it will cost"
5. Agency works like the dickens to revert with proposal (frequently again PowerPoint sent via email as executives are 'too busy' to see another presentation)
6. Agency waits anxiously by the email
7. Winning agency notified. Others wait...and wait
While this doesn't happen all of the time, it does happen often enough to raise some pretty serious questions. Questions like why are decisions to review agencies seemingly made on a whim? And why are formal RFP processes going the way of the dodo? If you can't brief at this level, then how on earth do you expect a considered and strategic response? And why do companies seem not to have budgets in place and force the ridiculous guessing game? Surely budgets are set? And how can a decision of this magnitude be made via email? For the PR agency to genuinely become "extensions of your team" then you really should meet the people who'll be doing the work.
The biggest question, though, is one of simple business courtesy.
Why, for goodness sake, considering the effort and time that agencies put into responding, do they seldom, if ever, get a call or email letting them know if the fruits of their considerable labours have been successful? OK, we don't expect to win all of the time and realize competitive tenders are, well, competitive. But is it too much to ask for a discussion on where we went wrong (be it cultural fit, understanding of the brief, team make up, proposed fee...)?
While I feel the day won't come in my career when PR agencies receive fees to tender for work a la our cousins in advertising, I certainly hope I'll see a day when this pattern I've outlined becomes the exception and not the rule.
- Jeremy