Emotions run high within Perth advertising industry as Tourism WA heads east to Host
After a three way pitch that included 303 Perth and BMF Sydney, Tourism Western Australia controversially announced today that Host, Sydney will be its new advertising agency.
Tourism WA executive director of marketing Stephanie Buckland said that Host wasselected from a highly competitive field, based on their excellentsubmission and on a value for money assessment: “The rigorous two-stagetender process was designed to find the agency with the mostoutstanding and impactful marketing approach and the ability to deliverit within our budget,” Mrs Buckland said.
The controversial appointment of Host has been approved by the State Tender ReviewCommittee, Tourism Western Australia’s Strategic Marketing Committeeand Tourism Western Australia’s Board.
Mrs Buckland acknowledged incumbent agency Marketforce for theircontributions to Tourism WA: “John Driscoll and his team have providedus with outstanding service during their time as our advertising agencyand we thank them.”
303 Perth managing director Alan Taylor told Campaign Brief WA theagency was verydisappointed. He believed they put together a great pitch utilising thefull resources of both their Perth and Sydney agencies: “We gave it ourvery best shot and I can honestly say even looking at it now I wouldn’thave changed a thing,” said Taylor.
Marketforce decided not to try and defend the account at the time thereview was called. In Campaign Brief WA’s April 30th story “Tourism to travel east?”Marketforce chairman, John Driscoll, said that the pitch documentreleased by Tourism WA made it difficult for local agencies. “The waythat the weighting of the case study part was worded implies that theywere looking for case studies from major national or internationalclients and we believe that would disadvantage a Western Australianagency,” Driscoll said at the time.
Emotions within the Perthindustry have been running high on this pitch since the shortlist, thatoriginally contained three Sydney-based agencies and 303, wasannounced. Many industry observers have speculated that Host has alwayshad the inside running on the account due to their previousclient/agency relationship with Buckland when she worked at BankWest.Buckland was part of the BankWest decision making team that moved thecreative account from The Brand Agency to Host in Sydney in 2007 whenthe bank embarked on an aggressive expansion in the eastern states.
17 Comments
You needn’t have to change a thing Alan. Host are on fire.
Hats off to Host. Winning business in any market, especially this one, is no mean feat.
I do get worried, though, when I read things like, “value for money assessment.”
I hope Host didn’t just put in a low-ball offer to win the account. It hurts all other players when that happens.
I heard that 303 pitched this from their Sydney office. Maybe they should have played the local card?
Tim, Host may be on fire but so are most of the WA industry over this decision.
See the comments on the CB’s Perth blog
http://www.campaignbrief.com/wa/2009/07/tourism-wa-goes-east.html
It is a global industry now, get over it Perthites. I marvel at the fact that as an industry we are ready to take on global business from other countries when it’s up for grabs and yet we cry foul when an agency from a different state takes a tourism account. Get a grip. Host also handles BankWest, which was probably a good trump card to flaunt. That shop is slowly becoming a force to be reckon with and Anthony Freedman (aka the workaholic, wink, wink) is a gun. Well deserved Host.
BankWest?
I’m sure everyone at Host is cringing at the suggestion that this is their trump card.
Well I’ve never considered Perth as a tourist destination before. Maybe that will change.
The sun rises in the east.
The marketing Manager at Bankwest who gave the business to Host is also the same marketing manager at Tourism WA who just gave the business to Host. The feeling here in WA was that it was always going to Host and the reason 303 would have done it from their Sydney office was that the tender document made it very hard for a local Perth agency to fulfil the criterea.
While it made sense to take the Bankwest business to an Eastern States agency because of their plan to open over 150 branches in the Eastern States, the industry in WA is pissed off for many reasons. One of the main ones is that this is a State government client and the move to an Eastern states agency means jobs will go in our state. We think the governemnet should be supporting a local industry in these times.
It’s also worth noting that the previous agency to have the account decided not to pitch for the account as Tourism WA are infamous for being a difficult, frustrating and costly client, and that M&C Saatchi pulled out from this pitch (and if you read between the lines of their press statement it was clear they felt they couldn’t work with the people at Tourism WA).
Well said Peter. I wanted to reply to 9.54’s “Get over it Perthites” comment but I can’t do any better than a comment that has already been posted on the WA blog. I’m sure they won’t mind me posting it here:
You demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of the issues at play here. Take the emotion out of it for a minute and I think you’ll see that there have been some good points made here. You are being disingenuous in suggesting that anyone in the industry is calling for protectionism. If you work in the industry you will be more than aware that accounts travel across borders all the time.
Only an ecomonc rationalist of the most extreme hue would argue against the suggestion that any government body has a responsibility to purchase, where possible, goods or services from within their community – the community whose money it is. Only if these goods or services can not be purchased locally does the government have the moral right to source them elsewhere. This is the reason the PM is driven around in a Holden.
Now it would seem that the debate here would rest on whether or not a case can be made that the service could not be provided by a local supplier. As someone stated earlier in the thread, the case for this has not yet been made by TourismWA and we as tax payers have the right to demand that those responsible for this decision demonstrate to us the data that supports their actions. They would have to demonstrate that the net return to the state justifies the gamble that they are taking with our tax dollars. As someone who has been in the industry for many years I am yet to find any model that could predict this with a remote degree of accuracy, therefore we are being asked to back a gamble by government employees that would seem to have a very much larger downside than possible upside. All of this in a market that has several companies more than capable of delivering the service.
Having said all of that, there is something more important than the fiscal at stake here. The message that this sends to those that have been trying to build the local creative industries over the last 15 years or so is painful in the extreme – and that is the real shame of this decision.
1.53pm
“…the move to an Eastern states agency means jobs will go in our state.”
Interesting theory but.
Surely the incumbent will have rationalized as soon as they pitch was announced? And you can hardly see an agency who lose a pitch having to retrench since they have neither gained or lost net financially in the process (unless things are much worse in WA Advertising than we are led to believe)
I assume therefore the imminent job losses you are talking about are in the support industries like printing and TV production?
Cheer up! At least it didn’t go to Goodby.
I am not from WA, nor do I live there. However, I do understand Peter’s comments above.
We would all be furious if Tourism Australia moved their account to Colenso BBDO…
9:45 AM if their main target market was Kiwi’s, then I’d support it. But I think you’re getting Australian Tourism mixed up with the Department of Immigration.
8.34pm.
WA intrastate tourists outnumber interstate tourists 4 to 1. Do they really need an east coast agency to get their own people to visit?
When you see the brief to the agencies; resources etc. and you add the relationship history, it’s not unreasonable for the WA industry to be suspicious.
Look, a brand manager who buys that bank west shite isn’t going to do anything too clever on WA tourism, so don’t worry 303, you’re probably better off without it.