Singapore shopping mall shortlists nine agencies for tender, pitch described as a ‘farce’
Paragon shopping mall on Orchard Road
An upmarket shopping mall in Singapore has drawn up a shortlist of at least nine advertising agencies to compete for a budget of little more than $200,000 (US$160,000) worth of marketing spend.
Paragon, which is owned by Singapore Press Holdings and located on the citystate’s shopping district of Orchard Road, sent out a creative tender for branding and promotions work that tasks agencies to send in ten pieces of creative by the middle of next month for no pitch fee.
According to a source close to the pitch, the client has indicated that they were not unhappy with their current agency, but the pitch was necessary because of “audit purposes”.
Competing agencies have been asked to create five press ads for tactical promotions for Paragon mall, press work to rebrand Paragon Medical, the mall’s in-house medical centre, and on-site branding for Paragon Junior, its luxury stores for children.
No pitch fee has been paid to participating agencies.
The tender stipulates that Paragon, which houses luxury brand stores such as Gucci, Prada and Salvatore Ferragamo, “is not bound to accept the lowest tender, and the project may be awarded in whole or in part.” There will be no retainer fees for the winning agency.
Paragon has spent around $200,000 on four tactical campaigns this year, but has told agencies that this is not an indication that they have a fixed budget, according to a source.
Paragon branding on company website
Agencies must submit the CVs of every member of staff who will work on the business.
One agency invited to pitch described the tender as a “farce” and will not be participating.
The agency’s boss, who wanted to remain anonymous, told Mumbrella: “I can’t imagine how any self-respecting agency would decide to do this pitch. It’s a farce.”
“The amount of work they demand for an unpaid pitch, a “shortlist” that reads like the 4As agency listing, and a miniscule budget on the back of a “we’re not unhappy with our current agency, we need to do this for audit purposes” statement – and an agency is supposed to want to do this?”
“Have clients lost all respect for the amount of work a pitch requires? Good luck to any agency who actually wants to do this. The rest of us commercial agencies have paying clients to focus on,” they said.
The client had not responded to Mumbrella’s questions about the pitch or the above response to the pitch at the time of publishing.
Contenders must respond to the tender with completed work by Thursday 16 October at 5pm. Presentations to Paragon’s management team are scheduled to take place from the following Monday onwards.
The tender, leaked to Mumbrella, can be read in full here. The scope of work can be read here.
Shopping malls were the salvation of Singapore Press Holdings’ balance sheet earlier this year. A rise in revenue from properties such as Paragon offset declines from print and circulation revenue from its newspapers.
The publisher of the Straits Times, Business Times and The New Paper saw ad revenue fall by S$5.8m (US$4.6m) and circulation revenue slide by S$2.3m (US$1.8m) while revenue from properties grew by 5.4 per cent.
This clients business strategy is to charge skyhigh rents to others but get their own advertising for free. Couple of years ago they organised a “reality” tv show called The Pitch where they got agencies to compete on camera for their account….the top 3 prizes were media space in sph publications….i think Bates won that one.
These guys have no idea what it takes to produce so much work, where the only compensation is hope. You would think an agency would have the self respect to resist this exploitation but no….something tells me all the members of IAN will be there with their begging bowls out…..and they will in turn pass the exploitation on to their workers.
Agencies really need to prevent their product being turned into a commodity.
ReplyWe’re not even an ad agency and received the brief. Suspect they shortlisted by going through linkedin looking for someone with brand in their name….
ReplyThe industry brings problems like these on itself because it has an inability to simply say NO! It is however an opportunity to send a strong message to Paragon by allowing them to draw up their shortlist of nine agencies then in unison, all refuse to participate clearly stating the reasons why. Perhaps the incumbent would be glad to get rid of them!
ReplyGreat copy in the original campaign! Haven’t seen well-written pieces like that in a while.
ReplyHaving been in Advertising and PR for decades, “shortlisting” so many agencies says two things: 1) the client doesn’t know what he wants. 2) the client will probably take the best creative and ask the cheapest tenderer to replicate it.
ReplyIf anyone should be taking their advertising inhouse, it should be clients like these….but they never ever will. From their perspective, it’s too risky because it would actually make them accountable. The way things are right now suits them best….they provide zero strategic input to their agency which leads to poor qualit, ineffective work…. then they get ‘unhappy’ with their agency and look for someone new to torment for a pittance of a fee. And play the same game all over again.
ReplySomebody please tell these people to f### right off. They are utterly clueless and need to be put out of their misery.
ReplyHi Bob I dont think these people (the client who called this pitch) are in any misery at all….that’s the beauty of it….the agencies that end up dancing to their tune will be in misery.
FWIW I have seen their current campaign in the halls of Paragon and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it….it’s just like all the other garbage that runs as mall advertising. Any agency that thinks they are going to do a Harvey Nichols on this client is dreaming….it takes some serious vision, talent and guts to do that….not a job for gutless penpushers who are scared of making any decisions because they have a mortgage to pay every month.
ReplyI hope no agency takes part in this humiliation.
ReplySadly some of the clients have no clue how agencies work especially of those late nights (for no money). When something comes up their reflex is to pick up the phone and “ask them to come down”, with no idea on how much they can spend or what they want. Certainly in this case since no actual effort involved, why not make some more calls? Then they can happily report to their line manager that they have done a tremendous amount of work, indeed.
Reply– (I am an ex-agency person now on client side)
Two words: lynch mob. Who’s in?
ReplyThis is business as usual in Singapore. And I’ve been in this business for over 20 years.
ReplyCan anyone really blame them?
ReplyThey are after all a mall operator. It’s in their nature to window shop, spray on testers at the cosmetic counter, try on clothes they can’t afford or pull off in the changing room which no one will see except as a selfie on their FB.
And the mall owners SPH don’t see this as a problem. But an opportunity for agencies to earn some of the money from their monopoly. It’s a give back so to speak.
The smart money will avoid this . You are much better off putting it on SPH REIT instead.
There is a fool who believes he is really clever but lacking professional respect and common decency at SPH designing the parameters of this piddly little pitch. And there are bigger fools at agencies wanting to do it. It’s a fool leading the fools setting up a circus act.
ReplyThis is how far the industry has come since I left it 20 years ago. What a laugh !
Arrogant wankers should be told to take their pissy budget and shove it sideways.. even the winner will be a loser in this situation
ReplySeriously though, even with all this hype, 8 agencies will still pitch!
Reply“The winning advertising agency will be rewarded with $20,000 in cash and $250,000 worth of media credits from SPH, as well as the honour of hoisting the Golden Cleaver Award”
Something tells me the $250,000 credits will be used to perpetuate more local scam ads. It’s so obvious it’s not even funny.
ReplySo, who won?
ReplyHave your say