Coles shelves others, carries on with Omnicom, brings in Deloitte for bespoke agency ‘Smith St’
Mumbrella can reveal that Coles has opted to stick with its existing agency partners in Omnicom, with OMD, TBWA, and DDB on the brand’s roster to deliver media, creative, CX and more capabilities, in what has been termed the “pitch of the century” so far. It is understood that Deloitte was also brought in to be part of a bespoke agency that will be called ‘Smith Street’.
The incumbents beat out a combined Accenture Song and Initiative pairing.
The decision comes after a highly publicised pitch, which initially consisted of the three listed competitors, a full-service Publicis Groupe offering, an incumbent Omnicom solution, and the combined Accenture Song/Initiative solution. The list was cut down to just the latter two in May, with Publicis being notified it had not made the cut.
Looks like Coles wet the bed and couldn’t find their courage. Where’s the bravery gone in Marketing today? Smith Street feels like Safe Street.
Love the glass half empty comments about what a waste of time pitching is from the usual industry dinosaurs.
No wonder the agency culture is in the toilet and young people are leaving in droves if having the opportunity to pitch for a $90M client is seen as a waste of time.
Young people are leaving the industry in droves because they know they are worth more than working until midnight and losing their minds while pumping out work for clients that never say thank you and will whip the business away at the drop of a hat. Kids these days want to work for people who respect them as human beings. Times are a’changing.
What a huge waste of absolutely everybody’s time. Sorry to all those who got put on this pitch at all the agencies mentioned above, soul draining stuff and you are all worth much more.
Calling someone else’s integrity and courage into question while posting anonymous cheap shots in an industry comments section.
@irony and @josh (probably the same person)
The points raised by commentators above are legitimate. There are no shortage of major pitches that drag on for months, require great expense and ultimately end up with the incumbents, plus a few more agencies added to the roster. As simon points out, these arrangements rarely end well in terms of output or the morale of the team involved.
Woolworths has been out-marketing Coles for the last few years, with Coles’ advertising getting consistently less memorable and effective since the days of Down Down.
Maybe introspection is more needed than a pitch?
I have reported so many times on the “agency sets up bespoke shop to handle single brand” story. They rarely end well and burnout a lot of talent in the process.
Fascinated to see how this one well be different.
Have you intentionally doubled the irony by anonymously taking shots at the person anonymously taking shots?
Vanity wins. Agency future ghetto
The ex-lawyer in me is curious about how you would actually set this up. An interesting design challenge in its own right to do it in a manner that gives the parties certainty, accommodates flexibility in a way that can survive relationships between individual execs… not your typical agency contract. Not your typical business model.