As creative agencies compete for fewer, smaller, more project-oriented contracts, the most important question for many media shops is “do we really want to go through yet another review?”
According to three people who spoke to us, the latest client to issue a media RFP is TriHonda, the group consisting of more than 60 New York/New Jersey/Connecticut-area Honda dealerships.
The review remains in its early stages, and it marks the first time TriHonda has sought a new agency since 2012, when it assigned creative and media work to Publicis Kaplan Thaler and MediaVest, respectively. Spark Foundry later began handling the latter portion of the work.
We understand that the incumbent will not defend in the review, though it will continue working with other Honda dealerships across the country.
Honda’s national creative and media agency of record RPA declined to comment on the RFP, which is unrelated to a January review in which the indie shop beat out MediaVest to win back the account after three years.
Honda spends about $600 million on marketing in the U.S. each year. Two parties familiar with the business placed TriHonda’s annual paid media budget at just below $40 million, which is the same total Adweek reported in 2012.
We’ve been unable to reach TriHonda for comment.
It’s unclear whether TriHonda still retains a creative agency of record since the organization’s social media accounts only share national campaigns and its YouTube page is bare.
But here’san uncomfortable trip back in time to 1987, when thinly-disguised jokes about sexual dysfunction were apparently all the rage.