NEWS: Northern agencies call for action after GA’s pitch ‘fiasco’

Four Northern agencies are furious over a pitch they claim degenerated

into a fiasco.

All four were invited to contest the account of GA Property Services,

the estate agency division of General Accident, only to be told that

none had won the business.

Advertising Principles in Leeds, which says it invested more than pounds

20,000 in the pitch, is calling on the company to explain its behaviour.

Phil Hesketh, the new-business director of Advertising Principles, said

he had made several attempts to contact Keith Burns, the marketing

manager of GA Property Services, but without success.

He said: ‘Estate agents have a reputation alongside used-car and double-

glazing salesmen and behaviour like this doesn’t help.’

Two other Leeds shops, Brahm and Charles Walls, pitched for the pounds

900,000 account alongside Manchester’s BDH.

Later, all received letters from Burns expressing regret that ‘we will

not be pursuing a relationship with your company’. Burns was unavailable

as Campaign went to press.

The row comes just over a year after the Incorporated Society of British

Advertisers and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising drew up a

pitching code for agencies and clients which urges clients to offer

losing agencies a post-pitch debrief.

This week, John Hooper, the director general of ISBA, urged the agencies

to voice their concerns to senior executives of GA, which is not an ISBA

member.

He said: ‘It’s worrying that this company has not justified its actions

better to the agencies. ’

This article was first published on Campaign