Agencies form consortia for Singapore Tourism tender, incumbents JWT and Mirum withdraw
The contenders for Singapore Tourism Board’s global creative pitch have been revealed, with a number of agencies clubbing together in consortia to strengthen their positions.
Ogilvy has formed a collective of two agencies, and Saatchi & Saatchi has formed a consortia of three. Another consortium called Ad Planet Group is made from five companies.
Leo Burnett, Publicis, Dentsu, Comwerks and DDB are also on a list of nine runners and riders, which has been uploaded to government tender portal GeBiz.
Comwerks has submitted the most competitively priced proposal, with creative, digital and production for two years priced at S$5,075,686 (US$3,592,885). The highest priced is Publicis Singapore’s at S$8,848,973 (US$6,262,529).
Tender price proposals for competing agencies (Sing dollars):
- Publicis Singapore: $8,848,973
- TBWA\Singapore: $8,618,253
- Dentsu Singapore: $8,067,275
- DDB Singapore: $6,894,465
- Ogilvy & Mather consortium: $6,767,758
- Leo Burnett Singapore: $6,407,322
- Saatchi & Saatchi consortium: $5,912,179
- Ad Planet Group consortium: $5,284,447
- Comwerks: $5,075,686
J. Walter Thompson and digital sibling Mirum, which have handled the STB business for the last two years (Mirum, formerly known as XM Asia, for longer) until a review was called at the end of July, have withdrawn from proceedings.
JWT won the Singapore Tourism Board account in 2013.
A joint statement from both agencies, shared with Mumbrella, reads: “J. Walter Thompson Singapore and Mirum Singapore have both decided to withdraw from the current STB tender process. J. Walter Thompson Singapore and Mirum are proud of the role they have played in helping build a world-class tourism brand for Singapore and remain committed to continuing to help STB achieve its business objectives in 2016. It’s been a stimulating account and an enjoyable partnership. Both agencies have recently won significant new accounts and plan to reallocate resources to these accounts in due course.”
Previous incumbent BBH held the business for four years. Before BBH, Y&R was STB’s agency. Neither agencies are competing for this tender, which is to find a global network agency that can integrate creative, digital and production capabilities for the next two years. The contract will be extended for a further year subject to performance.
A shortlist has yet to be drawn up, an STB spokesperson confirmed with Mumbrella.
Media, which is handled by MEC, is not part of the review. The GroupM agency’s contract was extended until March 2017.
I guess JWT/XM got the vibe that they were never going to win in a million years…after they failed to make a creative impact on the business in all their time on it……I don’t know what new business they have won to make up for this massive loss….let us wait to see their announcement of new business wins.
Interesting to see the disparity in quotes….at least one of the agencies in the running outsources all digital work to some suppliers in India…which might explain their low pricing.
ReplyVery telling when all former incumbents are avoiding to repitch.
ReplyA case of ‘once bitten….’ or ‘fools rush in….’?
Y&R is very proud of our past relationship with STB and the “Uniquely Singapore” campaign that our Agency helped to develop. More so, we are also very proud of the nation of Singapore and have been honored to have been a small part of telling it’s great story to travelers of the world.
Mumbrella readers should in no-way infer that our decision to not participate in the current RFP is a reflection of our passion for either the Singapore Brand or the valued partnership we had with STB.
We wish them the most success in this important process.
Best
Matthew Godfrey and the team @ YR
ReplyYou have to be nuts to go for this pitch in times like this. Only a dumb agency would spend upwards of a hundred thousan dollars on 10-1 shot at winning…. Esp as creative work has nothing to do with the selection process. None of these govt bodies know what creative work is….its what they say it is…lol.
But greed is a powerful motivator….i only hope that the agencies that lose will not resort to layoffs to offset the money they are about to waste.
ReplyI dont think matthew godfrey was at Y&R when the STB account was there and when ‘Uniquely Singapore was developed, so it’s hard to understand what he is so proud about.
ReplyCute name!
ReplyY&R was a 150 strong agency when it had STB.
As nobody currently there worked on STB and given its current size, participating wasn’t really much of an option.
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