ICA congratulates Patti Summerfield on her excellent coverage on the Bell pitch (Strategy, Aug. 3/98, p. 1), and protests Strategy’s editing of my statement and your editorial: ‘Bell pitch: nothing ventured, nothing gained’ (Aug. 3, p. 10). You demonstrated unfamiliarity with the advertising agency business or disdain or both.

You missed out of my original statement a number of things including the vital sentence and the crux of the matter: ‘… six ica members chose to proceed, having been reassured over and over by the committee that they had been empowered to make the selection that there was no-one missing from the eight- or nine-person advertiser group’.

In your editorial, you wrote, ‘any client… has the right to make its final choice on the basis of whatever emotional factors happen to be at play at decision-making time’. This is the key issue. Of course Bell has that right, but only if it is made clear at the outset.

Then if the invited agencies know that the decision could be based on reasons unrelated to the submission or the committee’s decision could be overturned by senior management (not involved in the process), two things would have happened:

1. Several agencies would have withdrawn to avoid ‘consuming’ their agency for months and spending several hundred thousand dollars in the process.

2. The remaining agencies would have pushed Bell very hard for a simpler review of credentials and cases, instead of the six by six meetings including speculative strategies and creative. Yes, Bell paid a total of $120,000 but the agencies together spent not less than $1.2 million and probably considerably more.

Advertisers continue to push agencies to lower costs, improve efficiencies and pass these savings on in terms of reduced fees. Agencies have only their talent and time to sell and when it is consumed by wasteful clients’ exercises, the whole industry suffers including the advertisers who don’t follow ‘best practices’, and conduct fair agency selection processes. The ica will continue to press for reimbursement of the agencies’ full costs.

Rupert Brendan

President

Institute of Canadian Advertising

Toronto, Ont.