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 Theres a story going around town (thats the actual Adelaide town and not just AdTown) that the SA Great advertising account has been awarded to an interstate advertising agency. Whether or not thats entirely true remains to be seen. But that excellently juicy rumor, combined with the fact only one SA agency (KWP!) is on the shortlist for the SA Tourism account, certainly has eyebrows raising, tongues wagging and blood boiling. Oh, and shit flying. Holy crap! Why on earth would these organisations even consider sending their business across the border?!?
Well, not being ones to shirk a decent brawl, and hiding behind the veil of relative anonymity, let us have a crack at answering that. Its because SA Ad Agencies are crap. Whoa! Hang on a second... Before you send in your hate emails, let us explain. Thats not necessarily our opinion, but according to the latest Campaign Brief rankings theres not a single Adelaide Agency in the top 24. Hell, we got to 45 on the list before an Adelaide agency (Clemenger) even made an appearance. And KWP! were the only other Adelaide agency anywhere in the top 100. Even when you take a peek at the Hottest Agencies in Other Cities (ie the best of the rest that dont really count in the eyes of our easterly neighbors), Adelaides crowning achievement is at number four below three Perth agencies.
So if youre an Adelaide client and for some reason you cant or dont want to use Clems or KWP!, (Heaven forbid, we know), unless youre happy with a luke warm agency, youre pretty much screwed - unless you head across the border that is. According to Campaign Brief and their Hot Agencies lists anyway. And speaking of heading across the border, why is it OK for certain agencies (who shall remain nameless although their names do in fact appear in this article) to head to Melbourne and Sydney to produce their ads to get access to what they consider better talent, but its not OK for clients to do the same? Yeah, yeah, we know, SA Great and SA Tourism are government accounts, and they should be obliged to use a local agency. Right? Were not sure about all the states or territories, but were pretty sure the ACT, NT and TAS tourism accounts have all cast their nets outside their own borders over the years in an effort to get the best agency for the job. Not that that makes it right, but SA is certainly no Robinson Crusoe in that department.
And if the government were obliged to use local resources no matter what, we can thank our lucky stars we have a GHM factory here, and not a Hyundai factory. Imagine the crime rate if our boys and girls in blue were chasing down the crims, sirens blazing, in their Hyundai Getz? Although with petrol prices the way they are, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.
So let us finish by saying this.: we happen to think there are some damn fine people here in good old Adelaide town. Extremely creative and talented individuals. And there are some fine ad agencies as well. No question about it. But when we look at whos winning awards around Australia and NZ, it aint us. So put yourself in the shoes of a client. What kind of agency would you want working on your behalf? Agencies are pretty bloody quick to try and point out the correlation between effective ads and award winning ads. So if you wanted to get the best results, where would you draw the line in that Top 100? Wouldnt you want an agency that was in the top 20? Top 30 even? Hell, somewhere in the Top 50 would be nice dont ya think? Which leaves, oh yeah, a grand total of one agency to choose from.
Yes, we know this opinion is hardly going to be a popular one. But until a bunch of local agencies are kicking arse at a global, or at least national level, we can at least understand why clients might be tempted to look elsewhere. Instead of blaming the clients outrageously poor decisions, maybe agencies should be looking a bit closer to home for the real reason behind it all.
It was nice knowing you.
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