Last week, VP of Brand, Jordan Kretchmer, for Current sent out a RFP via Twitter. He’s calling it TwitteRFP. It’s been interesting, funny and sickening to watch. Here’s my take:
What I Like:
- Obviously, something like this is in line with Current’s existing model and/or it’s in line with the goal of their RFP.
- It’s been really fun to view what each agency has done in response.
- Similar to #2, it starts to show the attitude of an agency, more so than a standard deck.
- I’m about to go into RFP mode. Selfishly, this saved me a lot of time and allowed me to get a sneak peak at a ton of agencies.
What I Don’t Like:
- Can we say EGO much? Current’s ego, agency ego.
- It smells of desperation. When do agencies cross the line between putting together a solid response and just reeking of desperation?
- Kretchmer originally stated five agencies would make the first cut. Due to the response and submissions, he’s increased that to 10-15. If he’s wishy washy now, what happens later? Agencies beware.
A few tips from a Brand Marketer to Agency Hopefuls:
- I understand this is social media and you have limited space, but spelling and grammar count! Well, at least to me. It especially counts when you’re commenting on a post. The lack of makes me cringe. It’s the little details that matter most. Don’t forget, first impressions count.
- Answer the question!!! There was one very simple rule: “Reply @jkretch by Monday 8pm PST. Only requirements are to include your agency name, and what you could bring as Current’s partner.” Upon sorting through many of the responses, several agencies didn’t clearly and effectively answer the question. Screw everything else. The main focus should have been on a powerful, concise answer. If you can’t follow the initial instructions, why should I assume you’re going to follow instructions down the road?
- Inside jokes between agencies? Yea, I’m probably not going to get them. I don’t live in your agency world. The only thing this is going to accomplish is you looking like a snarky, petty, douchebag. Only use humor that everyone can understand.
- And last but not least, DON’T MISS THE DEADLINE. One minute after 8PM is still one minute too late. You had a few days. Other agencies got thier stuff in on time. If you wanted it badly enough, you would have too.
I enjoyed your entry about the TwitteRFP. I must say I have been somewhat annoyed by it all week, and it’s refreshing to see I am not the only one out there that doesn’t think this was the most brilliant idea since sliced bread.
The – in hindsight – embarrassing piece of information is that I run an agency and had to somehow participate. How could I justify otherwise? We did it in one single tweet which answered his initial request and gave a link to the amount of good work we’ve done in social media, knowing that the assignment had already morphed into something else that nobody quite knew what it was.
It was kind of like someone you don’t know giving you money and saying “here, now go buy a lottery ticket and make sure that you win” – you can’t afford not to, but you know that the short list has less to do with the quality of the work (empirical, reliable knowledge) and more to do with how cool you are because you have a lot of friends on Twitter, or something as random as that.
And I get it, probably a serious response was never the intention. Having been on the client side, though, I still wonder what Kretchmer truly got out of it other than a lot of exposure for himself and a great deal of agencies kissing up to him. Egos and more egos. One thing I know, if you end up with a list of 20-25 agencies on your RFP list, you haven’t done your homework right.
Everyone is hurting for business, my agency is no exception. But you can’t possibly win a business by begging your way into it. Nor you can judge an agency by evaluating their tweet, 12 second video, or a landing page that says “Current, we want your business ” (I’m paraphrasing). So to me, this whole thing was a big debacle that has since deflated like a balloon.
I was initially intrigued on how this was going to shake things up, but other than raise @jktrech’s profile and expose a lot of agencies in a less than gracious way, not sure what else came out of it. In the end, one thing is true. It’s sometimes hard to tell your grandma what you do in this business, because it ain’t always pretty.
Susana –
Great comment. Sorry it didn’t post right away; had my settings slightly screwy.
Of course, the only talk of it on twitter was positive. God forbid an agency tell a client their idea sucks
Glad someone else saw it for what it was.
If you notice, the majority of agencies that made the shortlist were ones that publicly and aggressively kissed Current’s a$$.
To me, the RFP process is personal and private. It’s no one’s business who or why you chose an agency, except for the agencies involved. Furthermore, making the RFP process public opens up the door for scrutiny, criticism and outside opinions that have no business enterting into the process.
On the other hand, like I said in the post, it opened my eyes to a few agencies- both ones I’ve been looking at and ones I would never have considered and/or known about.