WPP Production is urging clients to do all of their production
work with the holding company — thereby avoiding outsourcing to independent production houses — and at least one production trade group says WPP's stand is essentially an assault on
“the free market in commercials production.”
Leaked internal documents from the holding company's production arm state: "Our goal is to avoid traditional commercial
triple bidding by proving the value of a centralized partnership by positioning WPP Production as the default, trusted partner.”
Triple bidding is the standard urged by trade
groups including the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) in the U.S. and the Advertising Producers Association (APA) in the U.K.
advertisement
advertisement
The leaked documents suggest a way
that WPP can circumvent the commercial bid process. “If a client or creative team requires triple bidding to assess different options, we should evaluate if WPP Production can provide all three
bids internally from the same or different markets. We can satisfy this need by offering three different production approaches, locations, and director treatments within the same country or within the
region — keeping the work entirely within WPP Production.”
Steve Davies, CEO of the APA, issued a response that in part read: "This is a serious threat to the free market in
commercials production — and to the independent production, editing and post companies within it — but only if clients don't see through it. I think they will.”
“Professionalism means putting clients' interests ahead of your own. WPP has effectively announced it's doing the opposite,” Davies asserted.
The triple bid, he added, is
central to the collaborative system between agencies and production companies that enables “great work.”
WPP Production took issue with the APA's assessment: "Any suggestion
that WPP Production misleads clients or undermines fair competition is fundamentally wrong,” the firm responded. “Selectively quoting from a comprehensive document doesn't fairly reflect
what is a completely transparent process."
"We respect competitive bidding and work with independent production companies, always adhering to client contracts and procurement requirements. We
make decisions with clients, helping them find the right solution for each brief and considering WPP capabilities alongside specialist partners.”
After deadline, US trade group AICP also weighed in, taking issue with WPP’s
position. “This is a serious threat to the free market in commercial production, and not
only to the independent production, editing and post companies within it, also to the marketing investments of WPP’s clients if they don't take note and understand this as the anti-competitive,
self-serving “offer” from their “agencies” within WPP that it is.”
Filtering
out creative and business options from their clients isn't in their interest. And having a
"triple bid" that may be just three internal bids from the same company isn't a triple bid at
all; it's a plan to mislead clients into thinking they're getting competition and choices they have asked for when they're not.
AICP also noted that in April, more than two dozen production trade associations from
around the globe issued a letterwarning
advertisersof moves by holding companies that they contend are efforts to stifle competition
from indies.
This story has been updated.