What should have taken place years ago appears to be taking place now. Advertising firms are being invited to pitch the NRA their services as a replacement for Ackerman McQueen. The news comes from the British advertising news site Campaign.
Interpublic CEO Michael Roth announced that they would not be pitching the NRA account.
Roth said: "There is a review out for the NRA and we're not participating in that. And that's not just coming from me, it's coming from our agencies, you know. Our people don't want to work on an engagement like that."Interpublic is the fourth largest advertising company in the world with annual billing revenue of $7.5 billion. Their major advertising subsidiaries are McCann Worldgroup and Mullen Lowe Group. Some of McCann's clients include MGM Resorts, Coca-Cola, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, and GM. Meanwhile, Mullen Lowe represents companies like Burger King, Schick, and E-Trade.
This leads to the question as to whether Interpublic is just engaging in virtue signaling or does it have concerns about the NRA's finances which might preclude them from taking the account (if they won) due to risk management. As reported last week, Ackerman McQueen is demanding to be paid for work on NRATV or they will close it down. So far that bill has gone unpaid.
The other question out there is what other advertising firms have been invited to the pitch the NRA account. The answer to that is "we'll see".
I'm voting for virtue signaling. If they were concerned about financing they could structure the contract to protect themselves.
ReplyDeleteYep, probably virtue signaling... sigh
ReplyDeleteIt is virtue signaling. NRA clearly also has a problem getting serious people for its board for this reason. If you consider the very large number of articulate, national board experienced conservatives that are former members of congress, former senators, former ambassadors, former US cabinet officials, etc and what a bunch of small time sleepheads no one has heard of on NRA board it is amazing. I get the slate each year and I just cant believe that it is the slate for a >$300 million ~4.5 million member associations board!
ReplyDeleteAnd you even see interns and younger employees completely scrubbing NRA from their linked in for years now. None of the majors agencies is going to take NRA lobbying or communications shop.