At the 4A’s management conference in Bermuda, Volvo CEO Anne Belec made a speech in which she announced to the crowd that she was looking for new ideas for her auto brand. And she did it right in front of Ron Berger, the CEO of her current agency Euro RSCG, who introduced her to the crowd before she made her speech. Ad Age has the scoop.
This isn’t the first time a car client has pulled a stunt like this. As I wrote about some time back, GM’s CJ Fraleigh gave a speech in which notoriously held up a blank check that he promised to give to any shop who presented him with a killer idea.
Fraleigh was inundated with ideas, as I’m sure Belec will be. But agencies looking for a piece of Volvo will be wasting their time. This is an attention-getting trick, not a serious request or account review. And by the way, Fraleigh left his post as GM’s Exec VP of Marketing and Advertising not long after he made his speech. Which proves that clients are sometimes as unstable as agencies are.
