Feb 9, 2010 Gepostet von Martin Albrecht am Feb 9, 2010
in Kommunikation im Wandel
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Who’s the Giant?

When Irwin Gotlieb took the helm at the newly founded Mindshare a little over 10 years ago, the  – somewhat unfortunate – motto of the enterprise became: “Standing toe to toe with the giants”. Given that communications planning was barely invented, media agencies focused on one thing only: the money stream. In refreshing honesty, Mindshare’s former website is free from esoteric talk about the smarts of media planning and instead boasts about its financial mission:

“Securing competitive deals and managing our clients’ media investment is fundamental for MindShare and our critical volume ensures favoured customer status with powerful media owners. “

Source: mindshareworld.com from 1999

“Powerful media owners?” Strange how this industry can’t quite agree on who is the big bad guy. In an enlightening interview (4. Februar 2010) in “Horizont” the head of communications of big bad FMCG (G as in Giant?) Beiersdorf muses how they now need to install their very own and neutral media expertise in order to stand toe-to-toe (“Augenhöhe”) with – media agencies. Oops. How did that happen?
And how true is it? If Beiersdorf is looking for quality first and price second and if they truly wish for honest and unbiased advice from their media agencies (“Natürlich wäre uns eine Agentur am liebsten, die uns als Berater ausschließlich in unserem Interesse zur Seite steht.”), then why not use your largesse to change the rotten system: Just demand transparency and pay a fair price for consulting in return.