So Bacardi are putting their global business up for pitch again.
What a surprise.
This is a brand who’s had more partners than Lindsey Lohan … and whilst you could say this indicates adlands continual failure to fullfil the needs a progressive thinking client, for once, that’s just not the case.
Infact, it’ would be fairer to say Bacardi has continually failed to fulfil the needs of adland because they go into relationships with a totally closed mind – refusing to listen to any fresh ideas, regardless of how beneficial they could be to their business.
The fact is they don’t care their category is full-to-the-brim with identical offerings, communicating in identical ways – they can use their distribution strength to counter that – they just want an agency so their fixed ideas can be produced, which is why as soon as there’s someone else who’ll do it for cheaper, they’re off.
Hell, listen to the reason they’ve given for putting the business up for pitch …
“We are reviewing our international communication in light of changing consumer patterns.
This is not any reflection of how we valued the agency’s work on the account.”
What the hell does that mean? It’s political mumbo-jumbo.
Sadly, despite adland knowing Bacardi ‘commitmentphobe’ tendencies, they still chase the business like flies around shit because [1] they probably think it’ll be different for them [2] they think it has to be better than working on Johnson&Johnson or whichever ‘energy vampire’ client they have on their roster [3] the brand spends bucketload of cash.
Of course, because the winning agency will have had to drop its drawers to secure the business, the only way it can make any money on the account is to put less resources behind it … which means a bunch of poor kids are going to be overworked and underpaid as they answer each and every stupid demand of the client – safe in the knowledge that whatever they do will never be good enough and the account is going to leave in a matter of time anyway.
The best work comes from the best relationships, it’s as simple as that … so if Bacardi continue to judge their agencies on how much [or little] another network would charge them, then they only have themselves to blame as they become more irrelevant and/or downmarket.