Agency Has Bitch Fight With Holding Company Over Lost Account

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We've enjoyed all manner of holding company/held company corporate bitching from the inside and always reveled in its idiocy, ego-powered chest beating and pointless one upmanship so it it with glee we see an IPG bitch fight sprawled across the pages of Ad Age. Follow along. IPG owned Howard Merrell & Partners won the North Carolina Lottery account. HM&P resigned the account within one week because, according to HM&P, IPG wouldn't put up a required $1 million bond to insure vendor payment. The Lottery issued a press release announcing its account would be handled by independent Wray Laseter but made no mention of HM&P. HM&P issued a release that read, in part, "has issues meeting the bond requirements for HM&P. IPG could not resolve the issues in a timely fashion. As a result, IPG advised HM&P to withdraw from consideration. And, we have. The entire staff at HM&P is extremely disappointed. We put a lot of time an effort into the bidding process, and we were looking forward to working with the [lottery]."

Not to be pistol whipped, IPG behemoth issued a release of its own, saying, "Our decision had absolutely nothing do with our ability to secure this $1 million bond, an inconsequential amount in the context of our company's financial capacity. Instead, our decision was based on strategic considerations" without mentioning HM&P but referring to it as "one of our smaller agencies." Yo, Bitch, I'll whip your skinny little ass until your boyfriend would rather have sex with his mother than be seen with your bloody excuse for a face!

Written by Steve Hall    Comments (7)     File: Agencies, Bad     Feb-22-06  
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Comments

I was shocked/thrilled to see this in AdAge. Internal affairs like this are hardly ever made public. Will definfinitely be watching how this plays out.

Posted by: Mo P on February 22, 2006 01:34 PM

This is laughable. The lottery logo was designed usiing clipart.

Posted by: Disbelief on February 22, 2006 03:41 PM

Could politics be at the center of this debacle? Isn't the Mullen agency owned by IPG? The same holding company that also owns Howard Merrel - the agency that had to resign the Lottery Account because IPG wouldn't cough up the money for the bond. Hmm... Mullen lost the pitch to Howard Merrell. Mullen is a much, much bigger revenue for IPG than Howard Merrell. IPG says they didn't post the bond for Howard Merrell because HM is too small. Hmm. Sounds fishy to me.

Posted by: logo on February 22, 2006 03:48 PM

Would IPG have come up with the money if the Mullen agency had won the pitch instead of Howard Merrell? Both are owned by IPG and the IPG spokesperson admitted that IPG didn't approve the bond because Howard Merrell was 'too small' of an agency. Sometime you just gotta wonder...

Posted by: Coincidence on February 22, 2006 04:08 PM

The real issue here is that a small agency usually agrees to be acquired by a larger holding company to GROW. Apparently, that's not they way IPG sees it. They want to create effective fiefdoms where small agencies stay small and big agencies continue to grow. Nice. It will definitely make a small agency think twice about being bought up by a larger holding company.

Posted by: DC1974 on February 24, 2006 10:36 AM

Any new developments on this?

Posted by: doc on July 31, 2006 03:41 PM

Any new developments on this? I don't see HM&P listed on Interpublic's website. Did HMP leave IPG?

Posted by: doc on July 31, 2006 03:44 PM

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