From Ad Age:
WellPoint, the nation’s largest health insurer, has awarded its advertising account to Publicis Groupe’s Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco, two executives familiar with the review said.
Hal Riney won the pitch against three WPP Group agencies, each of which fielded an integrated “best of class” team from across network offices. Y&R Cos. and Grey Worldwide, both San Francisco, and Ogilvy & Mather, Culver City, Calif., headed up their respective teams’ efforts.
So how much money did WPP waste putting 3 of its divsions into a competition against each other, only to see all 3 lose? How many other companies in the world do this sort of thing?
You’ll keep seeing more inefficiency like this, as I’ve written about before. The holding company model, partly designed to increase shareholder value, doesn’t seem to be working so well right now.
