I can now add Zappos to my post
http://retailsmart.com.au/2009/0...ted-to-success/
Except that the curve for them was much shorter than say Kodak...
a client taking liberties isn't that unusual though is it? but what can agencies actually do about it?
until we club together and mutually agree to say 'no' when we need to (which may constitute a cartel, apart from being impractical) clients still hold all the cards. please someone tell me I'm wrong...
Is it at all possible that the 5 pages that Zappos looked at pretty much sucked? From the client's perspective, it often doesn't take much more than 70 seconds to know if a proposal is worth a full thirty minutes. I suspect one agency's pitch caught Zappos' attention enough to being awarded the project. Sounds like Ignited's did not. Malcolm Gladwell would surely defend Zappos on this one with his Blink theory.
What do you think it is, Mr. Contrarian--a lack of respect? Ego? Pompousness? I never understand it. We work incredibly long days to put pitches together, in the hopes of a shot. We at least expect clients to read the dang things. There are real people's time (including family time) and money behind those things.
To me, the most interesting part of Mike's article is the comment that they'll be telling future prospective clients that they measure how much time is spent reviewing the RFP. I understand that he's irritated, perhaps deservedly so, but I can't see how Big Brothering would help the cause.
AC, can you really not envision the situation in which you only had to view five pages of something to know it's not right for your purposes?
I'm not saying, "Well, maybe their proposal just sucked." But it could easily have been off-target--and just not right--in Zappo's evaluation.
Or perhaps Zappo's was familiar with his shop's work previous to evaluation and of the opinion they're not right for them in general? I mean, it's not like Ignited actually received an RFP.
My point, Mike's making an awful lot of assumptions, and whether or not his attitude is down to sour grapes, it certainly will come off that way to loads of people. I don't think that's a wise way to handle a loss.
And as far as letting prospective clients know their evaluation will be tracked? I have to say I'm with Jake on this one.
It's almost as if he feels he is justified in dictating the manner in which his shop's proposal will be evaluated. Talk about cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
(And why do I suddenly have a visual of Glenn Close screaming, "I will not be ignored!" in my head?)
Pitching. You pays your money, you takes your chances.
Hey! You quit moderating!
Yay. 
Hi all - First, I'd like to thank Mike for posting his blog/Tweet and all those that have taken interest in it. I just felt I should give a little of the back story about this RFP process. We originally invited 16 agencies to participate in our agency review. A couple weeks later, AdWeek posted the story along with our RFP http://bit.ly/14W8sS. The response to that was wild. We had over 170 agencies contact us requesting to participate. We were very up front on the fact that we had already invited 16, the total number that had requested to participate, the shortened time frame that the late agencies were working on as well as any other info we could to paint a clear picture of the landscape. From those 170 that requested to participate, 104 ended up submitting.
I know that a lot of attention has been given to Ignited's blog (great agency that has done great work), but there hasn't been much attention given to our request in the RFP to have two hard copies delivered in addition to the soft copy or the conversation that our Brand Marketing Manager had with Ignited (and just about every other agency).
There may be some speculation that we should not have allowed anyone else to participate that was not on the original invite list. However, it
’s pretty obvious that no one was forced to participate. I’m actually very happy we did allow more to be involved because we went on to invite an additional six agencies to come in for in-person presentations. Please note that we had the same time to read their submissions as we did those we passed on, so those really stood out. I’d also like to note that while the food/gifts are nice, they really aren’t necessary in the attempt to win the business (at least it didn’t impact us).
Mike
’s post really highlights the strange situation we all call “the agency review”. It’s crazy for the agencies for sure, but it’s also crazy for the client. I'm grateful we were able to meet so many agencies that do such great work and wish it was possible to meet with every single one of them for extended amounts of time to truly see what their capabilities are. But, as we all know, this isn’t possible. So, again, I’d like to thank all those that expressed interest, those that submitted and those that were invited in to present. Cheers to your continued success!
Aaron Magness
Zappos.com
Business Development & Marketing
amagness@zappos.com
http://twitter.com/macknuttie
Wait, you mean The Ad Contrarian went and ranted without knowing all the facts??? I'm SHOCKED!
At least we agree on one thing, AC, Sandoval got robbed.
Thank you, AC, for directing your readers to my blog about our experience in the Zappos pitch. Also, much respect to Aaron Magness of Zappos for his thoughtful and professional comments both here and in an email he sent me yesterday. He's done a lot to restore my faith in Zappos and its reputation for service.
I'm glad my post has sparked debate. I expected it to be polarizing and, frankly, I'm shocked that the vast majority of feedback I've received has been so supportive. In the end, my intention was not to vilify Zappos, but rather to get agencies and clients to consider how we can all contribute to improving a process that's deeply flawed. The Zappos example underscores that everyone involved loses when a pitch becomes a circus. But nothing will change until all parties acknowledge the problem and address it head on.
As I stated in my blog, I'm not bitter about the outcomeI'm disappointed by the process that led to it. Reading Mr. Magness' statement above indicating that Zappos has chosen to invite "an additional six agencies to come in for in-person presentations" only confirms that being eliminated in the first round was to our advantage. It also reinforces my belief that if a client running a review changes the rules midstream you should consider withdrawing. Pitching costs agencies real money; it's an investment. And like any investment, we have to analyze our odds of seeing a return. When we're told up front "there will be 12 agencies in round one, then we'll cut to 3 that will be invited to make formal presentations," we base our decision to invest on that information. When we later learn that 20 agencies were invited to the first round and six were invited to make in-person presentations, it's analogous to placing a bet and having the spread changed in the middle of the game.
As for tracking the time spent looking at an agency proposal, I hope prospective clients will see that as a good thing. After all, agencies that claim they can help clients measure customer behavior should practice what they preach.
Thanks again for all the feedback. Keep the dialogue going.
Mike Wolfsohn
EVP/Executive Creative Director
IGNITED
mwolfsohn@ignitedUSA.com
http://twitter.com/ignitedECD
I've never heard of Mike Wolfsohn or Ignited USA. After viewing their website I feel I know why. They aren't top tier players. Ignited USA should be extremely pleased to have been lucky enough to be in the running at all for Zappos.
Being that as it may, I liked their Blog RFP concept a lot. It's smart and shows their interactive conceptual thinking. Reality is they could have broke the rules while playing within them. Their mistake.
The fact that Zappo's did not take the time to spend any quality time on the blog shows how little "fit" there would have been between these two companies. Zappos is not a brand building company or a challenger brand and it will continue to fail because of it.
Example: I watched the endlessly tacky Apprentice series that aired with Zappo's founder a ways back. It should have been a brand and consumer building opportunity, but what was revealing was that the founder seemed lost, incoherent and at times out of it.
I'm sure both Zappos, a particularly unsavvy client, and Ignited USA, a junior interactive agency, learned quite a bit in the process and both are better for it.
I find Ignited's comments somewhat dubious. By their own admission, they participated in an open cattle call review. They had good indicators to how this was going to turn out, yet participated anyway.
1. They knew there were at least 16 competitors.
2. With the publicity involved, they should've expected the participant number to greatly increase.
3. An average review lasts 2 months.
4. They were dealing with people with no experience in the review process.
The # of competitors increases against the same duration of review, with inexperienced reviewers means you won't have much exposure time.
They had a fraction of 1% chance to win a $7 million account. That's not a good business practice. It's gambling. Unless you run with excess capacity, and your costs are therefore $0, the likely return on your investment is very low.
Zappo's undoubtedly deserves ire for how they ran this. And one can only imagine the type of behavior they'd demonstrate after winning this account if this is how they run pitches.
Sorry they went through this, but sometimes you need to know when to decline a pitch.
First, I'm surprised anyone is villifying IgniteUSA or Mike Wolfson for bringing their complaint to the community--that cattle call agency reviews don't serve the clients in the end, and the damn well spread agencies thin responding without much hope of dialogue.
Two things boil me in the comments thread: 1) how many people post their snarky comments anonymously, and 2) how Aaron Magness of Zappos never responded to the specific criticism that no one at Zappos visited several of the critical pages of the IngiteUSA blog.
Why is Zappos required to read past page 5 if they think it sucks? You can know pretty quick when something is not a good fit.
Zappos was under no obligation to accept the offer of a proposal from Ignite.
The fact that they did carries some responsibilities.
Maybe Ignite wasn't completely in compliance with Zappos' rules. Maybe they were foolish to even proceed under the circumstances (my agency didn't.)
Nonetheless, Zappos created an implicit expectation that proposals would be taken seriously.
Anyone who has to review proposals as part of his or her job understands that giving a proposal 70 seconds for review is a sham, it is ill-mannered, and it is arrogant.
It is devoid of the common courtesy that people in business ought to reasonably be able to expect. No amount of PR spin and smooth talk is a substitute for simple civility.
On the money, TAC. Any way you slice it, 70 seconds is a joke.
My agency experienced something similar with a client who asked for a formalised proposal that ran to over 100 pages. They requested it on a Friday, to be completed by the following Monday.
We did it, went to pitch and won the business.
But during the final pitch, I referred to something that was in that proposal document.
The Marketing Manager looked confused and said, quite openly, 'Oh, we never read any of those.'
Given that several of us had given up weekends to get the thing completed, it stuck in my craw somewhat.
But we smiled, took the business and carried on. What else can you do?
Zappos deserves some serious heat for their inept handling of this review. What a ridiculous joke. It's stupid to participate in cattle calls, but a lot of companies are still stupid enough to run them. As far as reviews in general, I was on a committee one time reviewing agencies for a $10+ million ad account, and I looked at the agenda of the ad manager and an agency was circled. I asked him why the circle and he said: that's who we're going with. That was theft. The agencies involved did spec creative, strategy and all kinds of prep to get ready. I never forgot this and never will. It's really a question of integrity more than any thng. I think Zappos deserves a black eye for this.
Having done the cattle calls and realised it was a waste of time for both parties eg: waste of time and money for the agency and a way to kill time and get ideas for the client I find this debate really interesting. I've never heard of either party before, However, I think ignite failed to garner my sympathy on one basic element. Zappo's RFP requested two hard copies of the proposal - Ignite chose to ignore this very simple and very standard request because they thought they had a better idea. This say's to me the relationship was a non-starter. In my experience of open RFP's (when they are taken seriously) hard copies are used in the clearing process so like and be compared with like. The blog may have been original but a client can't compare apples with oranges. I'm really not suprised they spent 10 seconds or whatever it was.
Let's try this: go to a restaurant, sit down and ask to try to just taste a few appetizers, entrees, desert and taste wine a few bottles, but don't fill your stomach, just a few bites. After you're done, go to thank the chef, the waiter. Return to another 16 restaurants and do the same. After a while, return to the 3 favorite ones. Choose different entrees, you may be in the mood to try something new.
So now you're ready, go to the chosen restaurant and have a normal dinner for the next 2 weeks.
That's where we're at today with pitching, more or less.
I find it funny when we expect people to read. Our Congress votes without reading. Long web pages? Yeah, they all get read, too.
People react. Reading is passe.
To me, it's another sign of a declining society, but to be shocked by it anymore is, well, shocking.
Wait, you are still reading this?
I have been on Ignited's website and it kicks ass. Not sure how anyone could say otherwise.
That anyone would approve of a Client spending seconds on a proposal that takes weeks, endless thought, time and money..is absolutely ridiculous. Client's need to take responsibility for the pitching process and show Agencies the SAME respect that they demand.
I have been in this industry a long time..worked for the big Omnicom Agencies, small, privately owned ones, and after reading Mike's blog and exploring Ignited's website, I have to say that I am thoroughly impressed and would by no means call them a junior interactive agency.
Some interesting points have been made in the blog post and comments . . .
After reading the comments, I want to add my 2 cents into the discussion. One of the repeating memes/themes that glaringly pops to my attention are the assumptions being made. I want to add some more grist to the mill . . .
Call it cynical, realistic or somewhere in between - 3 underlying basic assumptions for written/visual communications:
1. You assume they will read/view what you have prepared and sent!
2. You assume they will understand what they have read/seen!
3. You assume they will comprehend the implications of what they have read/seen and understood!
All too often, your lovingly crafted pitch, proposal, document, email, plan, etc. doesn't get past assumption 1 and ends up being filed in the container at the end of the recipient's desk, i.e. they stick it in the bin after 'glancing' at it!
Is it really fair to bag on Zappos when Ignited wasn't one of the 16 invited?
Apparently, pizza does get you in the door.
http://zappos.barkleyus.com/2009...07/pizza-party/
As agencies we walk in as whores and expect a limousine ride out as well paid brides.
Even if we get the contract, the divorce is imminent and our slutty arrival is never ever forgiven.
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