London, Like New York, Is The Place With The Business

I just read a perfectly charming piece in MediaWeek about agencies in London going after smaller “regional” accounts in the North.

In the choppy waters of downturn Britain, the trawl for new business from London-based media agencies seems to have taken a sinister bent of late, with those higher up in the food chain increasingly looking to more distant regional waters to bring in their haul.

…and it’s not good news for the regional agency that always provided that “personal service” and was often reliant on one, or possibly a couple of clients to pay the monthly wage bill, now that the big fish have decided to start eating their lunch in the regions outside the capital.

Simon Dodd, founder of The Digger Agency, points out that larger agencies often chase clients they would not normally chase during times of recession. He said, “Larger agencies have obviously encountered the drying up of spend from existing clients, so are now searching for business in areas they wouldn’t normally search, and looking at clients they wouldn’t normally look at.”

Maybe the regional players out to go looking for the big fish, while the agency bigs fish for fry.