Topics for the 11/1/09 Show

Here are the proposed topics for this week's episode of The BeanCast. Please feel free to send in your thoughts and questions.

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This week's panel will be C.C. Chapman (Campfire), Bill Green (Make The Logo Bigger), Len Kendall (the3six5) and Åsk Wäppling (Adland).

TOPICS

Pissed Off At Procurement: The agency world is starting grumble louder than ever about the role of procurement in agency selection. Rumors were flying that VW got down to a shoot out over dollars. JWT pulled out of UPS claiming, "They need to treat us or any agency as a partner, and it doesn't seem that is in their culture." Has procurement gotten out of control? Is there a devaluation of the agency's role taking place? Is this really more about size -- big companies negotiating with big companies? Is this really more that agencies have always charged too much for what they do and now clients are fighting back? Does the agency always need to be considered a partner or can they sometimes function well in a role as vendor? Does this cheapen the agency and does an agency cheapen it's reputation by caving? That was the watchword this week, "Don't cave" was what one agency exec said to a rival exec when leaving the VW boardroom. If one caves, does it make it harder for the rest? Can the agencies really hope to show any kind of solidarity against excessive procurement practices?

Yet Another Agency Model: Victors and Spoils launched this week to much fanfare. Yet another model for the agency world, this one claiming to get crowdsourcing right. What are they doing that's so different? I like that they claim this is not about "bidding" but true collaboration with the crowd and shared wealth. But how can anyone but the agency itself make money in this scenario? Doesn't it make creatives work harder for less? Aren't they describing a pyramid scheme or multi-level marketing where the guys at the top make all the money? Can this work? Is this the kind of thing clients are seeking?

Is Mail About To Die in The UK?: The UK is in the midst of a crippling postal strike right at the start of the crucial holiday buying season. Considering the momentum for digital in the UK and the distaste for direct mail in many quarters of the UK ad community, is this the nail in the coffin for direct mail there? What about fulfillment...will digital marketers ever come back when package delivery alternatives exist that are competitive and reliable? What about the privatization argument -- given the US experience with that, is it a good idea? Is this more of what we're dealing with in the US -- people hanging on to a dying medium, rather than helping it evolve?

PR Bypassing The Press: With online communities continuing to grow (the numbers this week on Facebook are staggering) and traditional media in trouble, more and more PR professionals are bypassing press channels and going directly to consumers instead. Branded YouTube channels. Participation in blogs and forums. Obviously this is a proactive and insightful move, but is the press really becoming that irrelevant to PR? Are there long-term consequences of not cultivating a solid contact list with the press? Is PR investing too heavily in social spaces? Steve Rubel did a great analysis of Facebook as either being the Google or the AOL of its generation. How do you judge the long-term risks of investing in networks like Facebook and Twitter? As a side story, Jim Louderback, the CEO of online video network Revision 3, took his campaign against bad analytics to Ad Age. Is there an accountability factor to be addressed in social spaces as well? We have all these self-report forum, podcast and blog numbers, being interprets by people who don't really understand what the analytics are saying -- isn't this a huge liability?

Surprise! MacFarlane is Offensive: Microsoft claimed shock and outrage that their brand was associated with incest and the Holocaust in its tie-in work with Family Guy, and pulled out of the deal. I'm calling BS on this. What do you think? Were they really suckered into this by CP+B or did they have this plan in place from the beginning -- get fringe exposure in a relevant market and then claim shock?