Jeremy Found puts choice at centre of COI offer

It was a process that began with the £76 million TV buying moving
from Starcom to Carat, then saw radio switch from OMD UK to Starcom,
MediaCom hold on to press and Carat land the cinema business earlier
this month.

Finally, COI has selected 14 agencies for its communications planning
roster, doubling the number of agencies on the previous roster, which
was compiled in 2000. The new agencies are BLM Media, Carat, Experience,
MediaCom, MindShare, Rise Communications and Universal McCann, with the
original seven reappointed.

So why the enlargement, and what will the extra agencies offer the
government clients? Found believes the key word in all of this is
"choice". Consumers are challenged on a daily basis with a dizzying
array of places to access news, information and entertainment. At the
same time, advertisers have a greater choice of where to spend their
budgets as media undergoes increased fragmentation. Therefore, it seemed
only natural to offer government clients more options.

He explains: "We found towards the end of the last roster that seven
probably wasn't enough. Our feeling when we went into the new roster was
that we would end up with around a dozen agencies. But as it turned out,
the quality of presentations was so high that we ended up with 14. We've
now got a wider range of agencies; from large to medium-sized ones
through to smaller communications planning agencies, which will equip
COI for the wide range of tasks we'll have coming up over the next four
years. More choice gives us better access to the best thinking in the
market."

COI has become renowned for its practice of pairing communications
planning agencies with creative agencies in pitches. Some media agencies
have felt this unfair because of a perception that their appointment is
dependent on a strong creative idea from the ad agency. But it's a
practice Found vigorously defends: "The benefit of pairing is that both
agencies receive the brief at the same time. Therefore, both are able to
make a contribution at the same time. Given the debate in the industry
about bringing media and creative back together, I think this is an
example of how it can be done. It can't be the model we had 15 years ago
when media was in-house and reactive to the creative."

Found contends that it would be wrong to lump the 14 agencies under one
heading. Instead, he says, the review has merely brought the roster up
to speed with the modern media world.

"We want agencies to consider all the appropriate routes to reach the
target audience, whether that is advertising, PR or sponsorship,
depending on who we are trying to reach and what we are trying to
achieve," he explains.

"The challenge hasn't changed, in the sense that there will still be
campaigns aiming at behavioural change, client response and recruitment.
But I think it's more the fact that communications have changed."

In person, Found is an understated chap and those who have worked with
him use words such as "shy" and "introverted" to describe him. His boss,
the COI chief executive, Alan Bishop, says he is "extraordinarily modest
and self-effacing for someone with such authority of experience and
sureness of judgment". These words are echoed by one media agency head,
who praises Found for taking the time to visit his agency and explain
why it had lost a pitch before the news broke.

Found has been in his current position for nine years. His media agency
career began in 1973 with a TV buying role at Ogilvy Benson & Mather. He
says that he enjoys the variety of the role, and he becomes visibly
enthused when talking about working in partnership with agencies.

So how have the media agencies appointed to its rosters found the
process?

The worst criticisms levelled include the suggestions that COI is not
dynamic enough and is a "bit old-school".

Unsurprisingly Neil Jones, the Carat managing director and a major
beneficiary of the roster review, takes the opposite view: "A lot of the
people at COI are ex-media, so they know how best to work with agencies.
The quality of the brief is good, they listen to what you've got to say
and, more importantly, they value media."

It's a view supported by Stuart Sullivan-Martin, the group strategy
director at Mediaedge:cia, who has worked on strategy for recruitment
campaigns for the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, among others. He says
COI "genuinely appreciates communications planning in the broadest sense
and is very open to targeting new audiences". He concedes, however, that
some agencies "might find its methods tough".

With all the rosters now in place, Found can breathe a sigh of relief
and focus on individual pitches and the day-to-day elements of his
job.

He concludes: "We try not to make things too processed and I think we've
created a framework to get the best from the agencies. It's all worth it
in the end."

THE LOWDOWN
Age: 50
Born: Barnet
Lives: Hatfield, Hertfordshire
Family: Wife and three daughters
Hobbies: Watching Barnet Football Club
Favourite film: Anything with Jack Nicholson from the late 70s and early
80s
All-time favourite ad: Nothing specific, but anything football-related
usually grabs my attention
Personal mantra: There are always two sides to every argument