Exclusive: Clemenger BBDO Sydney snares Foxtel account in shoot-out with M&C Saatchi
December 21 2010, 5:03 pm | | 36 Comments
CB Exclusive – CB can reveal that Clemenger BBDO Sydney has won the prized Foxtel business after the recent pitch which included M&C Saatchi.
Foxtel, which split with long-term incumbent Three Drunk Monkeys last month, is the third major account win for Clemenger BBDO Sydney in the past few months, having already won Virgin Blue and Hungry Jacks. The account wins have all occurred since the arrival of executive creative directors Paul Nagy and Michael Spirkovski.
36 Comments
Another scoop for WikiLynch?
Christ. Good luck lads. Worst client in the history of Australian advertising.
So is Clems a retail shop now? Chin up Spirko…bigger things await.
If by “prized” you mean poisoned, you’ve nailed it.
657 hit the nail on the head, what a nightmare, hungry jacks, virgin and foxtel. chaos awaits. milk the revenue boys because it is going to be hard yakka.
Turd polishers apply here
Imagine being an existing client of Clems. They’re not going to see anyone from the agency for months.
While it may be true that none of these accounts are ones you’d want to work on, they are good revenue earners if played well. The extra revenue will enable Clems to get back some decent talent for the more interesting work. The mood at Clems is pretty happy about winning these clients.
They must be doing something right over there.
What an incredible run! If they start getting some work out…
8:49! Interesting comment!
‘The mood at Clems is pretty happy about winning these clients’. So you work at Clems. But ‘it may be true that none of these accounts are ones you’d want to work on’
Sounds like pure mgmt/ecd speak from someone who plans to completely wash their hands of these big ugly accounts! Take note Foxtel!
The test will be whether you can get any work out that’s even vaguely good for any of these three clients. Loadsa money yes, but Clems will be churning out the retail offers for a long long time.
Maybe they should get Ted in as a consultant for them…he’ll take them off their hands soon enough
Looks like Whattoos goy a future.
Nice one Spirko. Nice win!
Are you kidding 10.58? The test is whether they can make decent money on these retail accounts… money that they can use to fund the work they want to do.
The BEST way to fuck it up for everybody is to treat cashcow accounts as a creative opportunity. You’ll just smash your head against the wall, churn out the odd watered-down piece of work that’s sort of good for the category but won’t ever win you anything, and lose the client inside of 18 months. No-one wins.
They’ll staff for these accounts with good solid people, make a buck off them, and use that money to pay for the sexy stuff: star creatives, funding proactive opportunities, that kind of thing. Well, they will if they’re halfway smart about it.
How do you think 3DM paid for those cool (but money-losing) creative bits that they’re making their name from? By taking Foxtel’s money and doing what they were told (although I reckon in amongst the client-led dross they did some good work – very good work if you factor in degree of difficulty).
BMF built their business in exactly the same manner. This market just isn’t big enough for an agency to survive doing nothing but ‘pure’ work. Every agency has to take on its share of the tough stuff. That’s why just about every agency in Australia would put their hand up to work on Foxtel, Virgin Blue, etc.
The minions might bitch about how tough they are (and yeah, they are tough) but without them, you probably don’t have a job. And working on the worst client in the world is a hundred times better than driving a cab for a living.
What’s with the foxtel bashing as a client? Monkeys won a lot of awards on them and made some nice ads. Am i missing something?
Please explain.
Well said 9:37 – I totally agree.
But still, Clems now needs to do some good work now that they have the money in the bank via the ‘cashcows’ you mention. They haven’t done anything good in a long time.
Check out how this story is written, along with the Hungry Jacks and Virgin wins. Could it be any clearer that Lynchy is sleeping with Nagy and Spirko?
Merry Foxmas!
Go the blues
since when was it a bad thing to win business? Advertising is for people who prefer a steady pay check over really expressing themselves creatively. If all anyone cared about was “the work” we’d all be growing beards and wearing skinny jeans and/or floppy felt hats and making art in a “collective” in Bondi.
ps i don’t have any love for clems
Now that Crawford and the mgmt team has secured these new business wins lets see if Nagy and Spirko can actually do some great work!
Here I was, thinking I was the only person in Australia called Anonymous. Then I found this website, and I was like, blown away.
This whole thread is more proof of how the Monkeys monitor CB all day in an attempt to ‘groom’ the comment sections.
Lots of jealousy in here.
11:44
Pretty sure the Monkeys are busy doing Ikea ads.
12:42
You’re proving 11:44’s comment.
12:42
Sounds like monkey talk to me
11.44, The Monkeys let the business go, they’re hardly jealous.
12:42
You mean busy doing retail ads for Ikea?
Good on ’em and good on Clems.
Winners winners chicken dinners!
Milk my tits!
Man, most of you guys are defeatists. It’s really sad. Everytime you sit down with a brief it’s up to you how good it’s going to be. Anyone that’s any good knows this. You fuckers leave work at 6 and expect that good things come your way. It doesn’t work that way. “you get paid” I would think to do a good. Even if it does get compromised it’s still better than rubbish. And that helps push things along. It helps you practice your craft. If you don’t see the positive, you gave up a long time ago and you’re another douche with a bad attitude that some poor sap of a creative director has to deal with. Then you’ll complain why you don’t get the good briefs. You’ll slowly over time make it to mid level but perpetually bitching on the blog because that’s right, you were so much smarter than everyone else. Here’s a tip; the smartest people in this business are the ones with the best attitudes.
Here’s a tip: You’re comments are mostly dumb.
I win stacks of awards and I leave at six.
10:24 must be a CD then!
Badoom-ching! Thank you, I’m here all week. Try the shrimp.
Bad carpenters blame their tools.
Bad creatives blame the brief, the suits, the agency, the structure, the coffee, the lack of sunlight, the bar staff, the receptionist, the traffic manager, the time they have to crack one and worst of all, call their clients tools.
Best of luck to them, anyone worth their salt knows a trick or two about getting around all of the above – wasn’t it a guy from clems that originally came up with the ‘ol “blue boat” trick?
Well done, I know my agency would have walked over hot nails to win that account.
My comment is this: no one’s mentioned Ogilvy and the disastrous Tampon Leadership* on that account internally – really really sycophantic and ultra political – and not the slightest interest in anything other than ripping each other off in order to say “it was my idea”. So, if anything changes for the better it would want to be that attitude first so that functional creative can be developed (and get out the door)… I didn’t think I’d say this, but I’m actually happy for the Client coz they deserve better.
* reference doesn’t include star import CF