The tender trap
When healthcare firm Benenden recently invited over 20 agencies to pitch for its business, it attracted much criticism within the PR profession for holding a beauty parade with so many contestants. With agencies being given just 15 minutes to present, it must have been a bewildering experience for the client, and a questionable use of time for the consultancies, apart, of course, from the winning firm.
Whether Benenden got the best agency for the job from this process is difficult to ascertain, as the company used a public tender approach to put together its, very long, shortlist. An obvious flaw with a tender is that you can only hire an agency if it applies. The consultancy with the best experience and people for your needs may not see your tender advertisement, or may choose not to go in for a competition where so many agencies are competing and the odds of winning are low. Another downside is that clients have to read so many submissions, consuming considerable management time.
An alternative to the public tender is to research the consultancy market – look for the agencies behind campaigns you admire, or those winning awards and doing the type of work that you feel your organisation needs. Rather than rely totally on past experience – as is the tender way – it can be smart to set prospective consultancies a short creative challenge to see how they think and approach a brief. This way you are not reliant on past experience alone. After all, the team you are meeting may not be the ones responsible for the great work on the website.
Eloqui award nomination
Eloqui has been nominated for a European Sabre Award for its work to promote Visa’s sponsorship of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Eloqui was appointed after research undertaken by Visa indicated that the British public was not aware of Visa’s association with the Olympics and the Paralympics, London 2012, or the fact that it is a key contributor to BOA and BPA. To address this, Eloqui focused on two principal initiatives to place the media spotlight on Visa’s Olympic commitment: Team Visa, a mentoring scheme that supports young British Olympic athletes, and Visa’s headline sponsorship of the UK School Games.
In the case of Team Visa we developed a high profile launch event at Lord’s Cricket Grounds involving all 18 young athletes and their mentors: Sir Steve Redgrave and Dame Tanni Grey Thompson. Endorsement was sought from Olympics Minister Richard Caborn and Seb Coe and Eloqui brokered an exclusive deal with Getty Images for pictures of athletes and mentors, which were used with the media as well as in Visa’s advertising.
For the UK School Games we commissioned a piece of research among children aged 9-15 to understand attitudes to sport and the extent to which young people enjoy sport at school. Findings were released to the media to coincide with the UK School Games to ensure Visa received public recognition for its involvement.
Both events together achieved coverage worth in excess of £1,200,000 (AVE) for an investment of just £46,000 - an outstanding return on investment.
