You have to just fucking love the piece from Mike Wolfsohn, of current uber-smart agency, Ignited, about their response to the invitation to pitch Zappos. Anyone not obsessed with the fate of BoBo the Chimp, will remember how Zappos invited the fucking universe to pitch their account via an RFP that was posted in AdWeek not long ago. Well, as Mike puts it so well… Like more than 80 other shops around the country, we were lured by the Zappos cattle call. The red flags were hard to miss: the RFP was posted on Adweek.com (so much for carefully screening the participants) and the brief asked for “storyboards and mock-ups” to be included in the first-round response (premature to say the least). But the temptation of winning the Zappos account was even harder to resist. He then goes into very funny and excruciating detail about how fucked up the whole process was. Definitely worth a read… And further proof that we are without a doubt in the most fucked up business in the Universe. Even though we should have learned from years and years of being fucked up the arse… We still believe miracles can happen. Ha… fucking yeah!!!
Do the fucktards at Zappos make great shoes, or what?
I got put on a cattle call like that last month by Time Warner...
Like 20,000,000 agencies were invited to bid....
It's anal reticular as a whole boat load of agencies put in time into the bidding process..
They sent it out like wildfire mailing each one individually so you think it's just aimed at you... until bingo.. you see 100 other people talking about it in other forums..
Posted by: The Founder | July 14, 2009 at 05:21 PM
Mr. Magness' comments come fourteen seconds and one Redbull float too late. Can't have your Pizza Hut and eat it, too.
Posted by: CS | July 14, 2009 at 08:27 PM
Gotta wonder why any agency would still lower themselves to taking part in this process? Days (if not months) of billable hours wasted on a project that may not ever come to fruition because the client is only looking at the cost of your creative. Sod it. Agencies, in fact all creatives, should draw the line: look at our work, ask around the industry about us, and then hire us...or not.
But don't waste our time with your silly little power trips...
PS: if you're planning on hiring a creative agency based solely on cost, buddy are you in for a shock...
Posted by: Amod Munga | July 15, 2009 at 09:34 AM
The biggest joke of all is the account is only 7 million in paid media, that equals out to less than 200,000 in revenue which I guarantee you will be even less since everyone and their mother was tripping over their dicks to pitch it. Agencies are going to end up spending close to 100K (at least) in resources to try and win a 200k piece of revenue? Morons.
I don't know if it was Wolfsohn or someone else who pointed out the obvious that Hsieh already considers himself a marketing genius, so you'll probably just end up executing his ideas. Or Zappos will steal ideas from agencies, pick the cheapest shop they can and have them produce other shops spots.
Sorry, folks Zappos is not going to be the next eBay of advertising. Good luck to all you suckers.
Posted by: goldoneshow | July 15, 2009 at 11:26 AM
Nice shoes, George. Sort of like the ones in a great 2005 British film called "Kinky Boots." Rent it. You'll laugh your butt/arse off.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434124/
Posted by: Curvin O'Rielly | July 15, 2009 at 02:41 PM