Sampson to Subaru: You’re fired
Leo Burnett Sydney CEO Todd Sampson has fired Subaru, one of the agency’s most prestigious and awarded clients, after more than a decade together.
In an email to Leo Burnett staff, Sampson said: “We talk a lot about our priorities: People. Product. Profit (in that order) and sometimes that means we have to make some hard decisions. This is one of those hard decisions.
“Yesterday we fired Subaru. As you know Subaru decided to change its working model to one where their agencies pitch against each other for every brief. You know better than anyone that pitching is really hard on you, our culture and our current clients. We simply don’t want to work that way. We deserve better.
“We have had a long relationship with Subaru, of which the last 10 years were record sales, so we all need to act professionally in ending this relationship. Whilst they have not treated us well recently, they are not bad people.”
Trouble with the 15 year relationship may have started just before Christmas, when CB revealed that Subaru had appointed US Sydney to create and implement its January retail event. Then, in February, Subaru appointed Sydney creative agency Disciple to its agency roster, tasking it with the launch of the 2011 Forester.
96 Comments
Wow. It doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, how good it feels. Good on you Todd.
Good on you. You can tell that Subaru’s advertising is now client driven and it sucks because of it. It’s a shame because as someone who drives a Forester, I think their brand deserves better.
Brave
This trend among clients is really starting to shit me too.
most agencies are.. Profit – Product – People Whybin
a.k.a. “How to spin it when your client fires you.”
Well done. Pitching does destroy your culture, your business and your life.
Nice. Noone needs to put up with this shit. Very well done and sends a strong message.
Subaru are stuck in reverse there. How fragmented
will their brand be after every brief goes to a different agency,
with no continuity of teams working across it.
Next some Frenchman will be tapping you on the shoulder and saying “You’re fired too!”
Yep. Respect. Might hurt a bit at first, but it’s better than death by a thousand cuts.
This trend is crap and all our other good clients pay for it the constant pitching. The model just does not work. Good on you Leo B.
More agencies should have such balls. The industry would be much better for it.
does this mean that they have another car account lined up?
Um, most of your creative suppliers live at the mercy of this business model. It’s the way of the future. Good on Todd for sticking it to them, but be prepared to see more of this. It’s supply and demand at work.
They’ve had one foot out the door for ages. He probably leaked the email himself to distance himself from the whole relationship collapse..
Respect, if only more agencies were willing to put their staff ahead of profit.
Love! Good attitude!
Thank god someone is thinking about the people.
Too many agencies don’t.
Subaru were loading the gun, Todd just got in first.
Good on you.
As someone once said ‘If you’re not in business for fun or profit, wtf are you doing there?’
The ‘pitch for everything’ bs destroys both profit and enjoyment. No point having a crap time in order to lose money.
It’s been said that a principle isn’t a principle unless it costs you money.
Bravo.
Unless of course they announce next week that they’ve got Toyota etc etc.
@4:55PM – Spot on! man that place is aweful.
Yeah good call, after spending time at a number of different agencies in Sydney, most of them clearly put profit before people. The staff are just viewed as resources, nothing more nothing less in these cold, cold agencies… remember when everyone used to know everyone’s name and what they did at the agency… what happened to that man, where’s the love!?
Does anyone really believe that that Leo’s are putting their people first?
Whatever the spin, Subaru you look as right royal arsewipe! Shame! Take that you nameless spineless cocky shit-for-brains marketing director whoever you are!
US won the retail last year, Disciple are doing Forester. Doesn’t sound like Subaru liked much of what they were getting lately.
Well done Todd. It’s time for agencies to take a stand against all this pitching.
Rock and Roll.
5:03 the problem is that ‘continuity’ is in the custody of a ‘branding agency’
Drop the mic!
“Subaru. You’re Fired” – BIG RESPECT.
It doesn’t matter if Subaru were out the door anyway, or sleeping with other agencies.
Many (even most) Agencies would still slut themelves for the crumbs.
Good on Burnetts for saying no.
And as for the twat earlier who made the gratuitous Whybin swipe, they did the same thing to Rheem recently. Yes they are smaller than Subaru, but no account like that is profitable.
Well done…..the trend for clients to treat their brands like a ‘piece of rancid raw meat’ that they toss into the ‘starving Lion’s den’ does no one any good. Least of all their brand. In fact it only signifies a marketing department with no understanding of the importance of strategy. It’s a big call to sack a client…!! Wish u guys all the best!!
One of the clients is a real piece of work – smart decision -he had it coming. todd’s email was full on but at least he told his people straight. respect
I want to work for Leo’s in hope one day I can fire a client!
Gotta love Todd’s eye for a PR opportunity. Leo’s work on Subaru has been average at best for over ten years and the client has been extremely loyal to the agency over that time. Changing agency arrangements after 15 years is hardly being an unreasonable flighty client. Its great when an agency stands up to a hideous client but this isn’t as black and white as it seems.
Hmmm, seems a lot of agency folk don’t like that pitching thing…maybe think about that next time you make suppliers do it..hmmm
Hear hear! As a supplier I’ve come up with many great ideas that were pitched at numb brain agencies and of course taken credit for!
Todd’s standing in the industry as well as the business community (with a bit of Gruen magic thrown in) should get this story a bit of coverage. Good on you Mr Sampson and total respect.
best recruitment ad for Leo’s I’ve seen.
What will get go first to now balance out the lost revenue. Profit or People?
Bumping.
i can see why “Former LB guy” isn’t there anymore. what a douche.
Truth hurts!
I’d love to get 2 local plumbers to pitch to fix my 3 dodgy toilets.
They could both do one for free and then I could take my sweet arse time to decide who gets to do the third for a small fee.
Fucking advertising.
Even if they were about to pull the trigger on the agency, the agency got there first.
Nice one Todd. Fuck em.
Well done Leos/Todd. It might seem to some agencies foolish to fire a client who pays the bills but in reality it will detract from every other paying clients work, and will drive Leos employees mad. When a client asks for a disproportionate amount of attention they should be paying much more for the extra hours of work. The only way to kill this unfair trend is for all agencies to stick up for themselves and take back the power
You can’t fire someone that’s employing you. You can only resign.
And whatever the reasons, this doesn’t seem a particularly professional way to do it.
Leos lays the smack down on Subaru.
4.55 you quite seriously are very wrong indeed. I can only talk about the Melbourne office really, but frankly the atmos there is astounding and the amount of people who leave and then come back within a year or two is amazing. People stay there for a long time. They do both of these things because Whybin – and I’m talking about Scott here, very much cares about his people.
Ask anyone who works at Whybin Melbourne- they’ll tell you.
Cheers
Hats off to you…
Just checking….. are we still getting 4 – 5 directors and production companies to pitch their asses off so we can get ideas across the line with clients?
Hear hear! As a supplier I’ve come up with many great ideas that were pitched at numb brain agencies and of course taken credit for!
more shameless PR not to mention a totally unprofessional, undignified way to end a long business relationship (anyone remember a Subaru ad?) wonder how this makes their other clients feel?
You people crack me up. The idea that a supplier (yes that’s what ad agencies are) can fire a client is hilarious. “Fire”! What a load of hubris filled egomaniacal drivel. Leos may have exited the relationship, resigned from the account or even declined the opportunity, but to say you “fired” Subaru makes you seem brattish and perhaps a little foolish. Where on the food chain do you guys think you really are.
Agency people, listen…You make directors pitch for every single fucking job. You make us pitch, two, three rounds plus sometimes. You make ridiculous pitch requests like motion tests which require entire crews. You want the pitches in sod all time. And then…the job is often derailed / gets bad research results / was a figment of agency creatives’ imaginations in the first place and the whole thing evaporates. And all for no fee, every time, for every job. You don’t give a monkeys when prod cos bite the dust because of this model. Now your chickens are coming home to roost. Welcome to our world…
Awesome. Maybe the ‘we deserve better’ is a little OTT and prevents Subaru from coming back cap in hand when the pitching doesn’t work out, but good on yah.
Nicely done.
The best work from this industry comes from trust, and if a client ‘trusts’ the cheapest options they will get what they pay for.
Well done Todd and Leo’s.
Also, Todd has also been chosen to deliver the news due to his profile from Greun.
But good, clearly a message worth championing. If most agencies have the balls to follow suit it will benefit all in the long run – client as well as agency.
Well said 8.32. Well said.
I want to see the all agency video LB Syd created to let the client know they resigned the account.
Hey na, na, goodbye.
I’m impressed.
Yep 8.32, spot on.
Whilst one can easily understand Mr Sampsons the real reason behind his actions.
One still cannot help but be moved by the altruism on display and marvel at the great leadership shown – through a voice sounding almost Churchillian in tone and of the dimension of the great rallying call from Shakespeare’s Henry V… “….We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, For he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, Be he ne’er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition, and gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks, that fought with us upon St. Crispin’s day!”…
In the spirit of this greatness and by this acute level of understanding, integrity and passion that he has for “people”, I suggest that he takes from his own words and creates a manifest for the great benevolent organization that is Leo Burnett, and basing it on these following words, and I quote…
“…You know better than anyone that pitching is really hard on you, our culture and our current clients. We simply don’t want to work that way. We deserve better.”…
Suspend this heinous process of pitching for “one off” projects immediately with your suppliers, firm in your knowledge that many of them are indeed good people.
An even grander gesture would be, putting profit before people, as you have stated above, organize payment for the endless hours of work and investment that these “people” do when pitching for your work, simply because they “….deserve better.”
In addition to this and keeping with the spirit of his endeavour he should put a call out to his team calling for a total end to any unpaid overtime for work done outside of their working hours – perhaps even enforcing a lights out policy at 6pm. Walking through the corridors of Millers Point and announcing as Clint Eastwood often does on set when the wrap early “…go spend some time with your families” – all in the name of putting people before profit.
I guess it can be said that your suppliers do have a choice and can say no organisations such as your own and the many others who request pitching on projects – many whom by the way, now choose (on the film side) to ask production companies to create pitches and “treat” on projects that clients haven’t even approved in the hope that they do approve them or to help get them over the line, as they don’t have the voice, knowledge or ability to do so.
To be honest I think the answer to all this really lies in the fact that no commercial organisation and it’s people should really work for nothing but in this case some things should be made public and some not, because as what may seem a great PR exercise through the release of an internal e-mail in an attempt put a spin on the erosion of a relationship with a client and the impending loss of said client, can make an organisation and it’s people look rather trite and too believing it’s own press.
Agencies need to start having more balls. Good on ya!
I have to reiterate the point that production companies pitch on every job. I know it is not the same as we are not involved in long term strategy, but when an unreasonable number of directors pitch on one script (any more than 3 is in my opinion unreasonable) or pitching on jobs that haven’t been approved and not being paid a fee, or pitching on ‘favour’ jobs and charity jobs, it becomes disrespectful. Sadly it is all to common and Leos are guilty of it.
I can’t wait for Prod and Post companies to start firing agencies.
8:32
YOU ARE TOTALLY WRONG!!!!
Agencies are NOT hypocrites in this respect.
If we had our way we would go to our favourite director (and we know exactly who can do the best job and exactly how much it should cost) and just get them to quote without pitching.
The pitch for different productions is a process that is a mandatory by our clients. Not agencies. Three quotes normally. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to ask for check quotes just to keep the client happy. Then the request for check quote favours runs out and you have to give them a job to thank them for the check quotes. It’s all bullshit.
What is wrong is asking directors to do story boards and tests etc like you said. This I have to agree with you on.
If production company’s don’t like it you can blam the clients as well.
They are the ones with the multiple director treatment modle. Most times
agency’s really know who they want or at least it is down to two directors.
But client contracts and shit budgets mean the jobs need to be whored
around town to show clients they have a competative price and that the guy
you want to use understands it better then anyone else. The process is just
as painful for agencies. It sucks to have to play these game.
Our agency makes it a point to be as up front as possible and always repay favours asap. If you as the production company don’t feel that is happening take a leaf from Todd and tell the agency to fuck off next time around.
Todd has played the PR game to perfection on this. No one is talking about how Leo Burnett couldn’t delight Subaru sufficiently to keep them in the tent – instead everyone is talking about what a principled hero Todd Sampson is. He must be laughing his head off.
Dear 1.06, I respect the fact that the agency you work for does not behave this way, but a large number of the comments on this blog are right. There are far too many agencies that are guilty of this exact behaviour. Requesting treatments, budgets and references for scripts that havent been presented to clients, or havent been through research, or are destined for inhouse production. And it happens on an international level
No production house can afford to fire an agency. They will just continue to grin and bear it.
Yep.
The VAST majority of the time, clients mandate that we have competitive quotes for TVC’s… often for even low budget stuff with skinny margins (for agency as well as for production company).
Whenever possible, I’ll select the director and try to get them to exclusively quote and do a treatment for it… we’ll generally give them the ballpark budget and ask them to be sensible.
BUT, that’s pretty rare because generally we’re forced to get the mandatory 3 quotes. Which sucks, because if you’re any good at your job, you already know who’s best to shoot it.
@ 8:32.
You are 100% totally and utterly correct.
We get screwed by our clients and in turn we screw our suppliers.
Its a vicious cycle that will go round and around until we all go out of business and have to get jobs that contribute.
ADVERTISINGS :
Serious business.
I’m confident with Todd’s often stated strong principles that he’ll be comfortable telling the world his salary and how it is unusually low so as to be better able to put his people first.
Not.
1:35 – which agency do you work for? I’m still waiting on a bunch of favours to be repaid.
and when they announce another auto client in the coming weeks you will all change your views not doubt. Quickly. Opportunistic timing.
Although it sucks production companies have to pitch on every job, there’s only one that’s ever had the balls to say ‘fuck off’ to me – and I respected that and got them in on the next job.
Every other production company is ‘too busy’, ‘overstretched’ or quote something 4x the price to say no. Well done on Leo’s for having a pair of gonads and saying ‘enough is enough’, which I think is the point here?
Another point to make is directors and photographers rarely work 60 hours a week, 50 weeks a year and still manage to make a shitload more than most agency employees.
Shitloads more.
refreshing to see an agency with morals and stand by them. respect
8:01 you are completely wrong. There maybe a hand full of directors and photographers earning ok money in Australia. Directors fees have not really changed for 15 years. You’ll find many directors and doing other work including working in bars and coffee shops. Most directors/producers would jump at the chance to work 50 hours a week for a regular income, super, sick pay and job security.
I heard one of the Burnett bigwigs has a zero carbon footprint because he drives a car that is powered totally by his own self righteousness.
you can really see in these agency vs director comments which ones are speaking from the comfort of a salary.
No matter the circumstances of this breakdown, when you use the term “fired” in an email, you’re after a headline. After 20 years of working together, “resigned the business” would have had more dignity.
This is Todd’s best spin since “Im an Ad Dad” in New Idea.
It’s not me, it’s you.
I’ve a feeling this blatant serving spin will actually back fire. Looked at in the calm light of day once everyone has got over the easy popularity grab of the email its not really very classy behaviour. Indeed it doesn’t contrast very well with Subaru’s dignified silence.
Man who loses pitches says no to pitches.
“In the light of day” who says that, what a wanker.
Nice work Todd it’s time agency’s start
to push back. Subaru deserves the bottom of tha barell they are sure to end
up with.
Maybe Leo Burnett was taking Subaru on a journey where they didn’t want to go?
sounds very ‘Nigel Marsh’ of him & i like it..!
Exactly, 12:43. Its “in the cold light of day”.
Is it just me or is this whole thing childish?
I don’t find this smart at all, in fact it makes me question Leo’s as a whole.
Where is the cool headed leader? Where have all the grown ups gone?
Somebody help them…
In this string alone people have commented about Todd/each other/ the client:
“what a twat”
“what a douche bag”
“what a wanker”
“fuck ’em”
Makes me weep for the standard of debate in our industry. No wonder clients have such a low opinion of us.
Lets be honest here –
There is a lot of piss and wind there……
This is just an agency getting a headline before they get whacked…..nothing else.
If you’re a Leo’s client at least now you know how it will end…..
The “People. Product. Profit” mantra is nothing but an empty Leo Burnett tagline used in pitches and when recruiting new staff.
I have never seen an agency that has so many staff working after 8pm (and in some cases past midnight) on a regular basis. This isn’t pitch work, it is just part of the job for many LB employees.
If Leo’s really gives such priority to their people, I’d suggest getting their own backyard into order before grandstanding about “priorities” and “firing” clients.
Well done Todd. Now get yourself a show without those other guys and a decent comb-over like me and I’ll let you use my catch-cry.
Having worked for Subaru as a supplier in the past, I’d say their business ethics REALLY suck. More than once have they hung us out to dry despite years of loyalty. Good on Leo to have the balls to stick it to them..
I’m a copywriter in the States but I wish I worked for you. Walking the talk, I love it. Wish we saw more of it.
That’s alright then – Howard approves!
Garbage. The spin on losing a contract. What a wanker. Good on you Subaru move on from the dead.