The conflict around conflict in agencyland
In this outtake from The Weekend Mumbo newsletter, Mumbrella’s Calum Jaspan explores why ‘conflicts’ are still a sensitive topic, how one agency is finding a way around them, and if there is a path forward.
“One is fine. Two is a conflict. Three or more is a specialisation.” That line someone quipped to me this week resonated heavily.
“If I had just one of everything, I’d go broke.”
That one was said by advertising legend (and I think we can call him that in context) Harold Mitchell at Mumbrella360, 11 years ago.
By virtue of the fact that the majority of the worker bees in agency-land are young and still developing their business acumen. From recent client-side experience where I saw my agency team chatting with their colleagues on other teams about our upcoming confidential news like it was no big deal – the juniors simply didn’t understand. That in mind, I don’t have a great deal of trust in agencies around this sort of thing. I think there can be some flex (e.g. Woolies is a client, but you can work on Coke and simultaneously be a hero of supermarket home-brand and premium products), but generally speaking it take a mature and seasoned agency to be able to make these asks and have clients approve them.
A lot of Agency CEOs, desperate for revenue and growth, will happily sign away contract terms agreeing not to take on conflicts. So the bottom / desperate end of our industry constantly reinforces this position in the eyes of clients and their consultants.
Really dont see it changing. Its an agency own-goal.
Why would CUB move brands to an agency that is “mocking” them? The Monkeys are not just working for a competing brand, they are working on campaigns attacking them. Who has the better talent from The Monkeys working on the business CUB or Canadian Club?