OMD is midway through a 90-day process with long-standing client Tabcorp, reviewing how the two work together, AdNews understands.
It's not a pitch process, but AdNews understands OMD could face losing the client it has had for 20 years if at the end of the 90 days the client decides to call a competitive pitch. However OMD has denied this.
In a statement provided by OMD and Tabcorp, chief marketing officer at Tabcorp, Michael Smith, said: “Tabcorp continues to work with OMD as our media partner and is not in (nor planning to be in) any pitch process.”
It is thought that this process is roughly half-way though and includes an internal restructure of its Tabcorp team.
The process chimes in with comments made by OMD Sydney managing director Aimee Buchanan, in a recent column for AdNews that clients needed to give their agencies a chance to prove their worth before the client went out to pitch.
“Would we all be better off if more clients sat down and gave their existing agency the brief of what they were looking for and a chance to deliver, before going to market?,” Buchanan wrote.
“It would allow clients to know if their agency was up for the challenge, and if they could reinvent themselves for their changing requirements, and it would allow the agency to focus on building the right solution for their client.
“Smart consultancies understand this and drive exceptional value and knowledge conservation for their clients.”
Tabcorp pitching its business would be further blow for OMD, which lost the programmatic trading part of Tabcorp's business to independent shop Atomic 212 in March.
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