My Dad's fond of saying: "Insanity is hereditary; you get it from your kids." If that were true, we might almost be able to hold a certain notoriously airheaded heiress accountable in the latest Hilton Hotels debacle.
Renowned marketing strategist Joseph Jaffe is fuming at a clause in the hotel group's upcoming $45 million agency review, which stipulates that candidate firms sign over all rights to creative materials developed for the pitch - regardless of whether they win or lose the account.
He's absolutely right. As he says: "It's highway robbery and the worst possible insult to every last bit of integrity left in the ad business to have ideas from losing contenders implemented down the line."
Hilton get some twisted credit, I suppose, for at least being up front about their duplicity. I pitched a major consumer products firm about 18 months ago. Didn't get the business. Two months later, I got to watch the chosen agency execute exactly the big campaign idea we'd developed for the pitch.
It sucks, it's unfair, and it's wrong.
Michael O'Connor Clarke is proud to be a card-carrying flack. Currently based in Toronto, Michael has spent almost 20 years in corporate communications and marketing roles. He started blogging at almost the same time as he first moved into PR - over five years ago. Now he's trying to figure out how to combine these two areas of expertise for the benefit of clue-seeking clients. In his time, Michael has pitched people, products, processes and pop-tarts, but he has a congenital inability to peddle fluff.
