So Few Choices For Clients, So Many Account Conflicts

As recently as five years ago, senior marketing executives were “adamant about conflicts,” recalls Association of National Advertisers CEO Bob Liodice. But no more. In fact, last week the ANA released a list of the top-five member inquiries received in the first three months of 2005, and while compensation, agency relations and multicultural and ethnic marketing made the list of top client concerns, conflicts weren’t mentioned.

In fact, an ANA representative said, the organization hasn’t received any inquiries from its members about the subject of agency conflicts in more than two years.

Clients such as Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola say consolidation of individual agencies at a dwindling number of holding companies, along with the disappearance of many smaller and midsized shops, has narrowed the pool of shops and forced a redefining of what had once been ironclad policies that forbid their agencies from working on accounts at competing companies.