Collegiate? Or competitive? A dilemma for our times

I really should have been in New York City this week. It is the annual Adforum get together, where agencies have the opportunity to meet the consultants, intermediaries (whatever you want to call us), who advise clients on choosing and using marketing communications agencies of various hues. I have attended many of these gatherings over the last ten years or so. The meetings have been both really useful and enjoyable, as we have all been able not only to learn more about leading agencies, but also swap notes on key issues with rivals from across the world.

But I decided not to go this time. Why? I judged it to be more important to concentrate on honing my competitive stance than to spend a week with the opposition. This year, of all years, I have decided to plough an independent furrow  - to offer a service to my clients, the ‘Mutual Decision’ way of doing pitches, which is different to everyone else. No free creative work asked for or accepted. A faster, fairer, cheaper, less complicated, more efficient process.

I feel that sometimes with ISBA, the IPA, even The Marketing Society, it is easy to forget that being collegiate can come at a price. There is a time to sit down with competitors for the common good. I am sure that all of us (clients, agencies, consultants, trade body representatives) involved in the Good Pitch initiative in 2010/2011 felt that the time we put in and what came out was worthwhile. But turning best practice and new initiatives into reality usually needs single-mindedness and lonely endeavour.

I will be back at Adforum one day, but the revolution I am determined to see in the way our industry runs pitches and pays agencies will come about by pioneering, not consensus. Competition is a fundamental element of progress. Successful brand owners and agencies have flourished by fighting their rivals tooth and claw. Consultants (in any discipline) also need to stand up and be counted from time to time.  

Collegiate gatherings cement change. They don’t bring it about.