It is not uncommon for advertisers to invite ten to fifteen agencies to tenders for the selection of a marketing agency and to keep all of them in the game until the finals without any selection in the initial phases of the tender. This practice is exhausting for marketers participating in such tenders as well as for the client, who can easily get lost in the multitude of different solutions, from which only one needs to be chosen. Agencies that do not win the tender usually remain uncompensated for the costs incurred in developing the solutions. – In recent years, the situation has somewhat improved, but some clients still do not acknowledge the fact that hundreds of working hours are spent in the agency for an average tender and that there are also external collaborators that the agency must pay for. There are clients who provide some compensation to agencies, but there are also those who do not – says Luka Duboković, CEO of BBDO. To bring more order to the invitation tenders, HURA, as a professional association of market communication, wholeheartedly supported the recommendation of the World Advertising Association that advertisers should not invite more than four agencies to the final rounds of the tender. According to this recommendation, advertisers are free to invite as many agencies as they wish in the initial phases of the tender (in which agencies are just presenting their references and teams), but they are urged to reduce the number of agencies in the later phases of the tender, which involve (high) preparatory costs for the agencies, to three plus the one with which the advertiser is currently collaborating.
HURA: Four Agencies Enough for the Tender
